


Independent Puppets

by BlueSakura007



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Androids, Blood and Gore, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Experimentation, F/F, F/M, Science Experiments, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Superpowers, Suspense, Telekinesis, Teleportation, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 118,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26543317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSakura007/pseuds/BlueSakura007
Summary: Jenna Kaufmann, Andrea Vanderpen and Eve Ferencz are three best friends on the cusp of adulthood who are about to leave high school for good, but their Summer becomes tons more complicated when Connor, a runaway android, wanders into their midst one day and reveals that he possesses psychokinetic abilities.The girls are joined by Andrea’s boyfriend Arthur and police detective Hank as they help Connor and a group of other androids to hide from their creators, a company named CyberLife - who will make these androids pay with their lives if they’re recaptured - while this company makes numerous, often brutal, attempts to regain Connor and the other escapees.
Relationships: Connor (Detroit: Become Human)/Original Female Character(s), Echo | Blue-Haired Traci/Ripple | Blue-Haired Traci's Girlfriend, Markus/North (Detroit: Become Human)
Kudos: 2





	1. Episode 1: The Man in the Woods [Part 1/3]

_3:06 PM, June 11th 2019  
The U.K Midlands_

"What server are you on again?"

"I'm on Number 7."

"Cheers. Just coming"

The rhythmic sound of keyboards tap-tap tapping away like a rapid heartbeat pulsated around the I.T classroom of the secondary school, and this sound originated from the fingers of the twenty-eight students all typing on their computers to reach the thing they desired to see or access on Google. Outside, sparrows and other small birds flapped their way onto any tree branch or twig they could find, singing their respective sweet melodies in greeting to others of their kind. It was rather comical how, for the birds that chose to land on the very thin branches, their weight caused the branch they were gripping to bounce up and down for a few moments. 

Getting back to the main setting, the aforementioned classroom was currently playing host to fifteen and sixteen year olds who were almost face to face with the end of their high school lives, but right now it was a Tuesday, so they still had a couple of days left. Because they were in their final year and had finished all of their GCSE exams by now, they would finish the year a month before all the younger year groups in the school.  
"Aaaaand... I'm on." Jenna Kaufmann said to her childhood friend, notifying her that she was now on the same Agar.io server as her. As expected, she and her classmates were allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted due to only having 3 more days left there. 

"Where are you?" Enquired the one she'd just spoken to, Eve Ferencz, who was older than her by 9 months but they were still both in the same year group. While Jenna's hair colour was mousy-brown and it was mostly straight but wavy at the tips, Eve's was a bouncy, frizzy blonde mass held in place by a headband.

"Hang on... I'm in the C3 square." The younger one answered. She wore glasses all the time whenever she was awake because of being short sighted, and Eve also wore a pair but only for reading things on electronic screens like she was at this moment. 

"Okay. I'm in the middle." 

A few more minutes passed like this, in which the pair of girls played alongside each other on Agar.io, making their cells eat those of other players on that server, some of which were their own classmates. By now, their cells had grown to quite a considerable size after devouring some of the other players, although they were now facing even tougher competition; the players who had smaller cells were growing big enough to eat the duo's cells. 

"He's eating me! Help!" Eve exclaimed worriedly, focusing on nothing but her computer screen right now and desperately trying to shake the other player, who had a larger cell, off her tail. 

"What can I do? This bloke's chasing me too!" Jenna was also wiggling her mouse around to get her Agar.io cell away from that of the larger one which was pursuing them. "Go go go go go go go... and..." She clenched her teeth in suspense at whether or not she and her comrade were going to make it out of that area on the game map alive. "...and I'm dead now." She leaned back against her chair now that her cell had been eaten by the other player's one. 

"So am I..." The blonde said in addition. The image currently displaying itself on her own screen was the main menu of that online game they were playing. 

And so the next few minutes went by in this manner - playing rounds of Agar.io on their computers until it was finally time to go home, as that glorious time known as 3:15 came. The class erupted into a flurry of picking up their bags from under their desks, before picking them up and putting them on their backs for carrying as well as logging out of their computer accounts. 

"See you, sir." Jenna bade goodbye until the next I.T class to her teacher, and proceeded to walk out the door leading to the outside with Eve right behind her. There were two doors in that classroom: the one which they just took straight into the outside world, and the other one that lead into the corridor of the building, which was obviously indoors. "Are we still on to hang out tonight?" She turned towards the older one and asked this once they'd reached the school gates, where dozens and dozens of students who weren't taking the bus home were pouring out of the grounds. 

"We are. See you later, Jen." She said back to her younger associate, and then they went on their different ways back to their houses, in opposite directions. 

The impending Summer break just a couple of days away from that moment was the driving force which was currently causing Jenna to have a spring in her step as she took her usual route home, where she would walk down the road and away from the school for a few meters to be picked up by her parents further down that way. They liked to be a bit further away from the grounds because of the habitual traffic rush at the end of the working day. 

Until now it had all been dreadfully humdrum, and both of the girls had been counting down the months, then the weeks, then the days until the school year would end for them. It had felt like the flow of time itself was deliberately slowing down so as to tease them, but not anymore. In this final week, things were starting to go by even quicker than ever before, and the countdown until the three months of lazy days in the sun had become much, much shorter and less tantalising.

"I'll see you both later, love you." She gently pecked her mother, Rosalina, on the cheek, and then did the same to her father, Stefan. They were both sat on the sofa watching the BBC News headlines after they'd just had tea, and their daughter was just about to go and join Eve, along with another rather close friend of theirs, for an evening of hanging out together.

"See you, love you too." Rosalina said in response.

"Remember, be home by 7:30, alright?" Reminded Stefan. 

"Yes, dad. I will. See you!" 

And so she took another usual route: one that took her up to where she, Eve and the above mentioned other friend, Andrea Vanderpen, often met up in the afternoons or evenings to have get-togethers. This place was a building separate from the school and located about a mile away, and it was where this trio held their AV club - their parents were helping to rent this building because of the three girls being the sole members of it, with Andrea being the club president, so they were allowed to do whatever they wanted in there as long as they weren't breaking the rules or doing anything bad. This made it the ideal meet-up location. 

Jenna pedalled further up the gravel path leading towards it on her bike, using the corner of her eye to watch the sky slowly start to fade into pink as a way to signal the late evening approaching, and enjoyed the sound of the gravel crunching beneath the wheels on the way, the same way she got shivers from the relaxing sound of rain on a window. Eventually she reached the bike rack outside the AV club building and tied it there by using her bike lock, noticing two other ones there. Obviously Andrea and Eve were both already there. 

Jenna and Eve had been best friends since their early years of primary school, and had spent many an afternoon together running through the fields of their village there in the English Midlands. It was in their very first year of high school when they met Andrea for the first time, who had very recently moved to England from France, and the dynamic duo soon became a trio. Also, all three of them were at least partly from foreign countries, because Jenna was half Austrian (on her father's side) and half British, Eve was fully Hungarian, having moved to England with her family when she was little and only losing her accent a little bit, and Andrea was half British-half French (the latter being on her mother's side).

Ah, yes. The three teenagers who had no idea about how the events of that night would change their lives phenomenally.

"So what are we gonna do tonight?" Said Jenna a minute or two later once she was sat inside the AV club with her pair of mates, with her and Andrea sitting at the desk for the computer in there whilst Eve was on the beanbag off to the side a few feet away. 

"I've brought one of my Hetalia DVDs for us to watch." Offered the half French woman. She was the oldest out of them, with her long, flowing hair being a dark chocolate brown colour, and her eyes were predominantly emerald green but with a tiny little blueish tint. She was seventeen and had already finished at their high school a year ago, but she had still been allowed to continue running the trio's club since then and the other pair were both deputy presidents of it. 

"Oh sweet! Which one?" Queried the Hungarian. 

"The one with the first few episodes of the World Twinkle series." The brunette beamed as she held up the DVD box, prompting the disc inside to rattle from the movement. 

"Yeah, we could watch some of that." The youngest nodded. "And then after a few episodes, do you two fancy doing some random roleplay out in the woods? It won't be dark until about eight ish." 

"Alright then. Let's do that later." Agreed the one with the DVD, but just after she opened the box, she moved to insert it into the disc drive of the computer.

"Wait. I almost forgot something." Eve spoke up all of a sudden, making all movement stop and the two other heads in the room turn towards her. "We need to make a decision tonight for what I'm about to say, and I need both of you to answer honestly, because it's a very important decision and making the right one is riding on your honesty."

Andrea and Jenna nodded their heads in acknowledgement at this.

"Right. Good. The decision we've got to make is..." The frizzy-haired female began as she reached into the bag she'd brought with her. There were a few seconds of silence that followed, building up the suspense like in a dramatic movie until she finally pulled her hands out of the bag, holding a pack of pocky sticks in her right one and a packet of strawberry laces in her left. "Which one out of these should we have tonight while watching Hetalia?"


	2. Episode 1: The Man in the Woods [Part 2/3]

"I don't know... maybe... we could do the comedy scenario with the time travellers that we did last time?" Said Eve, holding a small part of her mass of hair in place with her right hand because of a gust of wind blowing momentarily through the trees and the space around them.

"Oh yeah I'd almost forgotten about that one! Also, what I'm about to say is a bit of a random idea that came out of nowhere, but why don't we maybe invite Arthur over the next time we meet up and do roleplay like this? The scenarios we act out might be more fun." The French-English young woman added her own suggestion. She was referring to Arthur Doyle, her boyfriend who she'd been in a relationship with for the last year and a half and who was originally from London but moved out northwards into the Midlands when he was nineteen. By now he was twenty-four years old and he worked as an accountant.

"Oh Artie I love you, Artie I do..." Jenna began to sing jokingly, in the same way friends usually tease each other in a non-cruel way.

"Shut up..." Andrea rolled her eyes in this same joking way and smiled at how childish the bespectacled girl could be sometimes.

"...When we're apart my heart beats only for yooooooouuuuuu!" This aforementioned girl finished, with the blonde also not resisting joining in with the last part and both of them letting out a little bit of a laugh afterwards.  
And then the three of them ran off a couple of meters in separate directions, so that they could make a dramatic entrance when they start the roleplay scene, and Eve was just about to run in when, during the split second in which she was turned the other way so that she could see where she was going when running off that short distance, she noticed something. To be specific, she thought she saw a living creature a little further away on the floor, in amongst some of the leaves strewn around.

It was a person's foot, sticking out from behind a tree.

"You guys..." Eve called over to the pair, who were wondering why she hadn't ran in with them yet to start the scene. "I think you should come over here..."

"What's up?" Said Jenna as they came over to her.

"Look." The middle-born one cautiously approached what she'd seen and pointed towards it, managing to look behind the tree and see the person who the foot belonged to.  
They had to get out their torches and shine the light from them over him because it was getting dark and thus it was harder to make him out, but it seemed the person laying there on the ground, on his side and appearing to be unconscious, was a rather clean-cut man presumably in his late twenties or early thirties with short dark brown hair. The clothes he was wearing were a semi-formal grey jacket with a white shirt and black tie, and dark grey jeans accompanied by smart black shoes. On his jacket there was a small blue triangle on the left breast area and a matching pale blue armband on his right upper arm.  
What was most intriguing, however, was that it looked like there was some sort of small red disk on his right temple, but that was the least of the girls' concerns right now.

"What happened to him?" Andrea spoke her mind. "What I mean is how did he end up out here all alone in these woods and knocked out?"

"Don't ask us, we were thinking the same thing." Eve replied, but she gasped out in surprise when she saw his head move ever so slightly just for a second, grabbing the attention of the duo beside her in addition.

"He's obviously still conscious, but very barely." Said Jenna, watching as the stranger on the ground continued to turn his head towards them, doing it very slowly whilst letting out quiet little heavy breathing noises through his teeth as if moving was causing him pain. It startled them just a tiny bit in their minds when he suddenly looked straight at them, gazing into all 6 of their eyes with his own pair, which they managed to make out as being brown. People usually say eyes are the windows into the soul, and the look in his was further indicating the fact that there was a good chance he was in pain. Within seconds, though, his eyes steadily closed again and his head fully fell back to the ground, completely losing consciousness this time.

"What should we do...?" This same one who'd previously spoken turned towards her compatriots and asked this with a look of uncertainty on her face.

"Well we can't just leave him out here." Andrea responded as she walked a little closer over to the stranger so that she could get a closer look at him, like how a medic would inspect a patient. "I think we should take him inside, into the club room." She knelt down to his level and put herself into a position where she'd be able to grab his left arm.

"Agreed." Eve added, before she and Jenna went to him as well, and on the count of three after they'd all knelt down, they grabbed hold of his arms and pulled him up, doing it carefully just in case to not risk hurting him. And like that, the trio went on their way back out of that woodland area and towards their AV club building, carrying this man with them by the shoulders and arms.

Fifteen minutes later, after the adolescents had gotten the stranger inside their club premises and put him down on the floor next to the beanbag, because there wasn't really any other place for him to lay down, with his head propped up on this beanbag. Jenna's black trench coat was draped over him as a makeshift blanket.

"What do you think this is here?" The brunette leaned downwards towards his passed out form and looked at the red disc on the side of his head with curiosity.

"Maybe it's a tattoo or something?" Reasoned the Hungarian.

"Perhaps, it could be that. The only other thing left unknown is why this bloke was out there, barely conscious." Jenna said whilst Andrea came back over and sat down next to them. "But I bet he'll offer us more insight into that when he wakes up..."

It was nothing more than another minute or so later when, while they continued to watch him, the stranger twitched almost unnoticeably, making them fully focus their eyes on him. Soon the twitch turned into more movement bit by bit, gradually bringing consciousness back to him, and then just as slowly, his hazel-coloured orbs began to reveal themselves as his eyelids opened.

After turning his head drowsily towards them, who were fully awake and at attention, he immediately blinked in surprise and his eyes widened somewhat when he saw the other people around him.

"You were out in the woods, hanging on to consciousness by a thread. That's where we found you." Eve said to him. "We thought we should take you inside, so that you're out of the cold. You're in our club building right now."

The man sat upright with his back against the beanbag, adjusted his tie for a moment and rotated his head a few degrees to the right as if self conscious. "Thank you." He spoke, his voice laced with a foreign accent not completely identifiable. His lips flicked into a small smile as another factor to display his gratitude.

"No problem, mate." Answered Jenna with her own amiable expression. "I'm Jenna, and this is Andrea and Eve." She introduced, motioning towards her respective two friends on either side of her.

"My name is Connor." The brown-eyed male introduced, and it was at this moment when, now that he'd said a little more, the trio deduced his accent to be American.

"It's nice to meet you, Connor." Said Andrea cordially. "We were wondering, how is it that you ended up out there in the woods all alone in the first place? Did something happen?"

Connor seemed like he was pondering about how exactly to respond, a look of deep thought on his face, before he replied with, "It's a long story." He then pointed at his throat with his index finger and said, "Damaged until noon tomorrow."

"Your vocal chords?" The one with the emerald eyes queried to clarify.

He nodded in confirmation. "I'll be able to say more tomorrow afternoon. My vocal chords will be healed by then. Can only say few words until that time."

"That's alright. We'll come by here again tomorrow afternoon, and then if you're up to it and your throat is better, we can talk more. Is that okay?" Enquired Eve considerately.

His head nodded once more and he blinked to show affirmation. "Yes. That's okay."

"Alright." Said Jenna. "Us three have got to go now because it's getting late, so we'll see you tomorrow." And the girls started to get up from where they were sitting.

"Wait." Connor spoke up just as they were about to head out the door, prompting them to turn around to face him again. "Jenna, you forgot this." He held up his left hand, holding her black trench coat they'd been using as a blanket on him, with half of it dangling on the floor because of him being in a sitting position. He knew straight away that it was hers because she was the only member of the trio who wasn't wearing a coat right now.

"Oh yeah. You can keep it for tonight if you want, so that you can keep warm." She said.

"You need it more than I do." He insisted. "It's cold outside."

"Are you sure? Won't you get cold in the night?"

"No, I'll be fine. I promise." For the second time in the last minute, he blinked slowly in verification along with lowing his head into another small nod. "The female body is more susceptible to illnesses."

"Okay. I suppose you're right." She caved in and kneeled down to his level, taking her trench coat out of his hand before putting it on.

"We're sorry we haven't got anything more comfortable you can sleep on in here. The best we've got is the beanbag you're sat up against right now." Apologised Eve.

"Don't worry, this is perfectly adequate." He replied in assurance to her.

"Well then, goodnight, Connor." Jenna said in farewell.

He flashed that facial expression of thanks again. "Goodnight, Jenna, Eve and Andrea."

After this exchange, the trio left the room one by one through the door leading to the outside, and for a moment the only sign of them even being there was the soft but cold wave of wind flying inside through the open door, circulating around the room until eventually it faded out, returning this room to its normal temperature.

Connor got up from where he had been sitting and approached the light switch next to the door, flicking his finger on the switch and plunging the entire room into darkness, except for the couple of flickering blue lights from the computer server adjacent to the desk a few feet away.

He found his way through the darkness back to where he had just been on the floor, and he laid himself down with his head on the beanbag, doing his best to drift off into an unconscious state again but while also recalling all of his recent memories, comparing them to the calm and soothingly peaceful atmosphere he was in at this moment.


	3. Episode 1: The Man in the Woods [Part 3/3]

The very next morning after the events of that Tuesday evening, the sound of bike wheels crunching against a gravel path were heard once more as Jenna rode on her way towards the trio's AV club again. On some mornings, such as Wednesdays like this one, she cycled to school, so today she leapt at this opportunity to drop by the club building and see the man she and the other two had encountered last night, Connor, as she had a few minutes yet before she needed to arrive at school on time. None of the three girls had told their parents about them coming across him, because they themselves still felt a little bit nervous about interacting with an adult male who they didn't know, and they could always tell them later that night.

Inside the club room, this man was sat in one of the chairs next to the computer desk, occupying his mind with many different topics of thought. He wasn't picky, he enjoyed deep thought about most types of subjects, and he was simultaneously holding a U.S quarter coin that he'd recently acquired, 1994 issue, in his hands, turning it over between its two sides and idly tracing his index finger along the outlines of the American eagle on one side.

He lifted his head up and looked at the door as it opened for a few seconds, allowing a certain young female to step inside and shut it behind her. Some small strands of the mass of brown hair framing her head were dishevelled from the waves of wind that had blown them about on her way there.

"Hello, Jenna." Connor greeted politely with a slight tilt of his head.

"Morning, Connor. How did you sleep last night?" She asked him graciously. She liked how the blue armband and the matching small triangle on the left breast area of the jacket he was wearing were somewhat luminescent, which was more noticeable in darker places and was something she'd noticed the previous night when he was discovered unconscious outside.

"Pleasantly, thank you." He nodded marginally. "How are you this morning?"

"I'm alright, thanks. I take it your vocal chords are still hurt until midday today, when you said they'd be fully healed?"

"Yes. I am gradually feeling better, however." A fraction of his upper lip turned into a smile like last night.

"Also, I have a bit of a plan." Jenna began to say. "Andrea, Eve and I haven't told anyone else about you, but my plan is that I tell my parents at some point tonight, and then they can help you to get back to the place you came from-"

"No." Connor suddenly cut her off, his eyes widening a tiny bit.

For a second, she was startled to a small degree due to how quickly and instantaneously he'd spoken. "You don't want me to tell my parents about us finding you in the woods last night?" She asked for clarification, wondering why he looked tense at what she'd suggested.

He shook his head in reply.

"You ran away from the place you came from, didn't you?" The girl said, as this seemed like a logical reason as to why he wouldn't want anyone to know where he was.

He looked up at her, knowing she'd worked this out as the correct reason for why he ended up out there about eleven hours ago, and nodded. "I did." He answered quietly. "I'm hiding."

"From who?"

Because of him being reluctant to tell her in full yet, and additionally because of him being unable to say more than eight words in a sentence right now, he took a couple of moments deciding on how exactly to put it before he said,  
"From bad people."

"Why? What will these bad people do if they find you?" She queried further.

Once again, it took a bit longer for him to respond since he was thinking of how he was going to reply, and then he finally decided: to indicate the answer to her question she'd just asked, he made the fingers on his left hand into the shape of a gun and pointed his hand against the side of his head. And a few seconds later he pointed his hand at Jenna's forehead, too.

All throughout her hours at school, she spent her time pondering on this information she'd gotten from Connor, which was that he'd ran away from some 'bad people' and if they found him, both of them would be killed.

She obeyed the bad habit of biting her nails from her nervousness at the type of danger she might apparently be in, because the only time she'd come even remotely close to peril in her life was when her father would sometimes give her driving lessons up and down their driveway, and even then she was only doing about a maximum of seven miles per hour.

These thoughts involving what she'd been told that morning plagued her brain for the entirety of the day, making her wonder what the rest of the explanation could be when he would tell them that evening and therefore causing her to desperately wish the hours would speed up. It then felt like time was toying with her in response, because the day was progressing slower as a result.

"Are you okay, Jen?" Both her mind and physical body were called to attention by the sound of Eve's voice a few hours later, once the evening had finally come. All three members of the trio were walking up the last few meters of the path leading up to the club, telling their parents that they were simply going to have another normal friendly meet-up, whilst wheeling their bikes that they'd used to get there alongside them.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I was just still thinking about what Connor told me this morning."

"So basically he's hiding from some 'bad people', and if he's caught then both him and you will be shot?" Said Andrea, as she had only been told about this a few minutes ago.

"That's what he put across to me, yes. And I'm not certain but you two would probably be killed by these people he's talking about if they find him, as well." Jenna replied.

"In any case, I believe we're about to find out about what specifically is going on." Said Eve, putting her bike on the rack outside with her friends doing the same.

"So what's going on? Now that your vocal chords are fully healed, why did you run away from these 'bad people' you mentioned, if you don't mind me asking? Did something happen?" The youngest asked the man himself a couple of minutes later, once they were inside the club room.

"We're sorry if we're intruding." Andrea added.

"No, it's alright. You were the ones who discovered me and allowed me to spend the night here, so you have a right to know." He said. "The reason I was outside in amongst the surrounding woodlands last night was because I ran away from an electronics company, which is called CyberLife. They came to the United Kingdom from Michigan in 2010, and their methods are rather... doubtful."

"How do you mean 'doubtful'? Do they steal resources or something?" Queried the blonde.

"Yes." Connor answered after a moment of pause. "They gain the components for their electronics illegally. I discovered this and fled once they found out that I knew, and they now wish to have me killed so that the information of their methods won't get leaked to any outsiders. They are also willing to kill any others who find out about this.

"Okay. How did you end up barely conscious, lying flat on your face in the woods?" Enquired the brunette, feeling chilled to the bone at the fact that her life was potentially at risk. The others were also trying to take in this same fact and were met with a shivery feeling crawling down their spines.

"While I was making my way out of the CyberLife building, I was injured by security in the process. Eventually, after managing to flee, I grew tired because of these injuries and let myself collapse where you soon found me."

As he continued to explain, the other pair were listening attentively but Andrea's eyebrows were covertly knitting themselves together in doubt whilst he spoke, running calculations in her head.

"Poor bloke. It sounds like he really does need our help." Said Jenna later, when it was time for them to go home for the night because it was currently the time their parents had said they were allowed out until. They were walking down the path leading away from their club building, wheeling their bikes at the side, and this part of the path ran through part of the woodland surrounding the building. "But what are we gonna do about our lives being in danger, though?" She turned her head and looked at Eve, showing a look of worry written on her face.

"I don't know, I honestly don't. But what I do know is that we can't tell our parents about this; that'll just put them in danger too."

During this exchange, Andrea had a puzzled expression on her own features, because she was still thinking about Connor's account of what was going on. She was holding her hair in place with one hand due to the wind whipping through the trees at random intervals.

"Andrea." Jenna tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. "What's up? You look like you're thinking about a movie plot hole."

"Well, something like that. I was just thinking that there's something wrong with Connor's explanation. It's probably nothing, but I've just got a feeling in the pit of my belly that something here doesn't line up. That there's something he's not telling us, and that he might have maybe also made up some of the parts of what he said."

"Why would he do that?" Said Eve, making the volume of her voice louder so that she could be heard and pulling some of her hair strands away from her eyes. The wind was getting stronger.

"Don't ask me. I don't even know for definite that my theory's right." Called back the oldest over the noise of the gusts.

It was right at this moment when, high up in the trees, a cracking noise was heard as a large branch was torn apart from the tree it belonged to by the wind, which was quite a bit stronger up there, and as soon as this branch snapped off, it began hurtling at an alarming speed towards where the trio were walking.

Jenna only saw it falling down straight at them at a little before the last second when she happened to look up, her involuntary yelping noise in surprise prompting the others to look up in addition. They raised one of their arms up each in defense and squeezed their eyes shut in preparation for the pain that would follow in a split second's time when they'd get hit, but after 2 seconds, then five, then ten, nothing happened. It was as if someone had pressed a button and time itself had simply frozen in place.

"What...?" Eve muttered to herself, all of them lowering their arms. And then they saw it.

Right there, a few feet away from where they were stood, was none other than Connor, and much to their surprise, the branch which had fallen from its tree and was about to hit them was being slowly lowered down to the ground without him even touching it. He had his gaze fixed firmly on the branch, and it was as if he was willing it to move by using nothing but his mind.

All of the trio's jaws fell open at the sight.

"Connor!" Jenna managed to say. "Y-you... did you... just..."

"Yes. I didn't tell you the whole truth earlier." He admitted, looking at them once the branch was fully on the ground. During his sentence, the small circle on his right temple that they thought was a tattoo briefly flashed from blue to yellow and then back to blue, and this was another thing they certainly weren't expecting. "The truth is, I possess the power of telekinesis."

There was silence among them for what felt like an eternity, but was actually just five or six seconds.

"Anything else we should know...?" Asked Andrea. She was barely blinking at all because of how much of an unusual evening this was turning out to be.

"There is one other thing about me that I haven't told you. Do you see this serial number?" He pointed at the digits on the right breast area of his jacket: #313 248 317-51. They were in small writing directly underneath the bigger, more bold text that said 'RK800'.

"Yeah. It's the manufacturing number for your jacket, isn't it...?" Eve questioned, wondering where this was going.

"It's not an identification of my clothing - it's an identification of me." Then, after he'd answered with this, Connor elegantly turned around a hundred and eighty degrees. They hadn't seen it yet, because for both the previous night and this one they hadn't been at the correct angle to see what the back of it looked like, but on the back of his jacket, there was a word written in big writing and entirely in capital letters:

ANDROID.


	4. Episode 2: Machines in Human Form [Part 1/3]

For a short chunk of time, the trio of teenage females stood there, mouths still agape, as they stared at this word on the back of Connor's jacket, 'ANDROID', and tried to mentally process everything that had just happened: not only was he telekinetic, but he was also an android. A mechanical being, effectively a robot, with a human appearance. A machine in human form. 

"Why didn't you tell us the truth earlier, when you gave us that explanation?" Asked Eve, finally gaining her voice back after the silence that stretched on. 

"I kept the true reason for why you found me last night from you all because then you would still stand a chance of remaining safe." He replied. "It is true that I ran away yesterday from an electronics company nearby named CyberLife, but it was because of what they did to me and others of my species."

"Others of your species? As in... _other_ androids...?" Said Andrea. She was even _more_ stunned now that she knew Connor wasn't the only one in the world. 

"Yes. CyberLife creates androids like me, and after being created we are given a superhuman ability each, such as telekinesis, which is what I have, or others like teleportation or electrokinesis, for example. But then after being given our powers, the company conducts experiments on us, and tortures the ones who use their abilities in self defense or refuse to cooperate. The androids whose powers are weak or are unable to use their abilities at all are executed." As he explained this, he walked over closer to them and tried to keep his voice down a tad, whilst also making sure he was heard over the gusts of wind, so that they wouldn't be heard if there was anyone nearby trying to eavesdrop.

"God..." Commented Jenna. It was true - he really had been through a lot. None of them could even imagine what his life had been like, because they had no experiences of their own to compare to what he'd just described. 

"Yesterday afternoon, myself, along with some of the others, used our powers to break out of the company's Tower and we escaped into the surrounding area in different directions. However, I was telling the truth when I said that I was damaged by guards during this escape, which was how I ended up unconscious in these woods and why my vocal chords were temporarily broken." He finished.

"And it sounds like they don't want any outsiders involved, either." The mousy-haired one also said.

Connor nodded. "If any humans from the outside world are discovered to be aiding escaped androids, then those humans will be killed by CyberLife, and so will any escaped androids who are caught." 

"What should we do...?" Queried the Hungarian, now more worried for her life. 

"We'll most likely have to keep you safe, and also make sure no one else finds out about you." Andrea addressed the male. "It's just what we're going to do regarding ourselves that makes me worried..."

"I'll protect you." He spoke up. "I promise, I won't let anyone hurt you because of me. I will keep all of you safe from CyberLife if we encounter them." His eyes showed a genuine desire to make sure, despite only meeting them the previous night, that these innocent humans didn't have anything bad happen to them by his creators. 

The look in those hazel orbs was a blend of both serious determination and a caring, soft side in equal measure, making the girls stand there for a moment in admiration. 

"You should probably be getting on your way back to your homes now. It's getting late, and if you stay out for much longer, then your mothers and fathers will become concerned." He told them a few seconds later, bringing them out of their state of mind in which they were gazing at his facial expression, feeling authentically reassured by the promise he'd made. 

"Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. We will." Stammered the member of the trio who'd previously spoken. "See you then, Connor." After this farewell, he watched them continue on their way as they turned around back in the direction of where they'd been going, which was the route back to their houses, and began walking again. Although now they were contemplating how in hell their days had remained so mundane until a minute ago, when light was shed on the fact that androids, a humanoid species only ever existing in science fiction, were real, and that they also had capabilities of superpowers running through their veins.   
All of a sudden the slow-paced, average world they'd been ensconced in during the entirety of their lives so far had been shattered.  
  


_**This song here is the opening title theme for the first half of this series.** _

<https://youtu.be/FOXaWCRv_68>

_7:04 AM, June 13th 2019_

A burst of morning sunlight flung itself piece by piece through the bedroom curtains, which were covered with a pattern of thin branches decorated by white blossoms, as these curtains were opened by pulling the cord adjacent to them. After pulling the cord and fully opening the curtains, giving her a view of the pale blue, almost cloudless sky with an artistic tint of yellow at the edges, Jenna soon leaned her drowsy head on her hand, resting her right elbow on the windowsill, and breathed out a sigh from her lips. The contents of her head were a jumbled mess; the events of last night felt real to her, the cold wind battering against her cheeks combined with a genuine feeling of shock when she discovered who, or what, Connor was, and as we all know, the human brain doesn't really bother putting that much effort into dreams. What had happened twelve hours ago was indeed completely real, and she hadn't dreamt it at all. 

Of course, as she left her bedroom and made her way tiredly into the bathroom to brush her teeth, saying good morning to her parents as she passed them in the kitchen, she knew full well that what she, Eve and Andrea had discovered the previous evening wasn't a particularly _bad_ thing as such, in fact she thought the man they'd found two nights ago turning out to be a telekinetic android was actually rather awesome, as she was a massive sci-fi buff. And what's more, so far Connor had shown himself to be a nice bloke, because otherwise why would he have used his power to halt the fall of the tree branch hurtling towards the trio last night?

The only thing was that there were two factors on the negative side of all this: she'd have to keep any knowledge of him even existing a secret from her parents, who she usually told about everything in her life, and she had also apparently put her life in mortal danger of the people he'd fled from by helping him and giving him a place to stay. But she soon consoled herself about these two factors by remembering that she wasn't the only one having to carry them on her shoulders - Andrea and Eve were also in danger because of aiding Connor and they, too, were having to not tell their parents about him at all, so she wasn't alone. It meant the three of them could have each other's backs in this. Another thing which outweighed the negatives was that it was now Thursday, the penultimate day before the Summer would begin for them, and therefore she only had to get through that current day and the next one before they'd be free to use their time thinking about the matter at hand and to spend more time with Connor. 

Once she was fully dressed, had her school bag on her back, kissed her mother and father goodbye for the day and gave her two Golden Retrievers a rub each on their heads, Jenna took her bike out of the garage and rode it off the front drive, heading on her way to the AV club building in order to see him again before the school day started. After the ten minute journey of pedalling hard down roads and a country lane, she was at last coming up towards the gravel path leading straight to the club, through the woodland area.

"Jen!" Came the sound of Andrea's voice from afar, prompting her to follow the sound of this voice and turn her head to the left. Sure enough, she was there as well, wheeling her own bike out of the woods and up towards the building with Eve alongside her, doing the same. 

"How do?" She greeted and got off her bike, wheeling it next to her as she went over to them. "What're you pair doing here?" 

"I thought I'd drop by before school starts and see Connor for a little bit." Eve answered. 

"And I came by to do the same thing before my shift starts." Added Andrea. She was old enough to work, and had a part time job as a waitress in the local café, with her shift lasting from 8:20 AM to 4 PM. 

"I was thinking of doing that too." Jenna explained the reason for her own presence there as they began to walk together in the direction of the building. "But it just feels... off. The most apt word I can think of to put this is that it's kinda weird, us dropping by like this. Because it was only last night when we found out that Connor's a telekinetic android, and now we're coming to casually see him almost like he's a human with no superpowers, like us." She expressed the current contents of her mind. 

"I suppose I feel the same way, partially." Agreed Andrea. "And the fact that he's effectively a robot is maybe the part I'm finding hardest to take in..." Unlike the bespectacled member of their trio, the darkest-haired one found the prospect of androids a little bit chilling, because even the Alexa voice in the well-known Amazon Echo had said some rather creepy things sometimes during its existence, but she also thought of them as a nifty idea and as long as they were like humans - a majority of them being good and not hurting anybody - then she could equally consider them brilliant. 

"But we're still gonna help him, right?" Eve was maintaining the desire to obey her conscience. 

"Yeah, of course we are." Said Jenna, with Andrea nodding her head in agreement. "I mean he looks, sounds and behaves like a human and was given a human name, so why shouldn't he be treated like one?" 

"And even though our lives are supposedly in danger because of that company he said he escaped from, I presume us three and him can look out for each other?" The blonde also asked. 

"We can." Said Andrea. "It'll be made even easier by what he can do." She was referring to his ability, and all of them could still remember the promise he'd made last night to protect them. They just hoped CyberLife wouldn't be powerful enough to take them down if they did, by some unlucky circumstance, encounter them. 

Inside the club, he was sat up in one of the desk chairs with his hands in his lap while he looked around the room by turning his head, sometimes blinking slowly because of how calm things were right now.

"Morning, Connor." He heard Eve say as she and the other two came in through the door from outside and into the club room. 

"Good morning Eve, Jenna and Andrea." His features formed into a half smile upon seeing them again.

Just as they began to sit down, he couldn't help but catch a brief glimpse of the bottom of Jenna's black school blazer and the top of her matching trousers; there were a few hairs there which he found out weren't hers after scanning them for a moment. Next to these hairs, the databox that only he could see due to his scan of them said:

**HAIRS**

_Canine hairs_

_Golden Retriever Dog_

And underneath this text, there was also a small picture of an adult Golden Retriever (with its mouth open and its big pink tongue lolling out) as an example in the data box. 

"You have a dog, right?" He addressed the youngest.

"How do you know?" Jenna asked in ever so slight surprise, giving him the answer to his question with another question. 

"The dog hairs on your clothes." Connor nodded towards her blazer. At this, she looked down at the little strings of fur there which she hadn't managed to rub off after giving her pair of canine pets an affectionate cuddle earlier that morning. "I've never met one for myself, but I like dogs. What's your dog's name?" The android leaned his head down a few degrees to the right to indicate his curiosity.

"I actually have two. Their names are Spud and Reuben." She responded, finding it sweet that he genuinely wanted to get to know her and her fellow members of the trio. "But by the way, we wanted to talk to you before we left for school and work." 

"What do you wish to speak to me about?" He blinked a couple of times, wondering what their topic of conversation would be. 

"Well, we just want to say that even though we acted kinda frozen and on-edge last night when we found out who exactly you really are, we still want to help you." Andrea said. "Because whether you're a human or not, no one deserves to live the sort of life you've had, and we're not gonna let them find and kill you."

"So we'll let you hide out here in this club building as long as you want, because basically no one else ever comes in this place except for us three, and we won't tell anyone else about you." Eve stated further. 

"Hang on." Jenna spoke. "We'll keep shtum to our parents about all this, but we still need to tell _one_ trusted adult who can help have our backs." 

"There's Arthur. He'll back us up." Propounded Andrea, to which the middle-born girl and the one who had spoken previously both nodded. "My boyfriend." She explained to Connor when he looked a tiny bit confused for a second. "Is it alright if I tell only him and no others? I pretty much trust him with my life, and I'll make sure he swears to secrecy, too." 

"That sounds fair enough." He answered while giving her a nod in addition. 

After this, Jenna walked forward a couple of steps, knelt down in front of where he was sitting and said, "Can you hold out your pinky finger for a second?" 

His eyebrows quirked somewhat at this request, wondering why she'd ask him to do this. "Which hand would you prefer?" 

"Either." 

He took his left hand away from the other and out of his lap, raising it in front of him at a distance that the girl could reach it at, and pulled his other four fingers on that hand inwards before extending his pinky finger. She then put her right hand forward and wrapped her own pinky finger around his, making him look at her in wonder of what she was doing. While her finger was quite warm because of her internal body temperature reaching into every single one of her limbs, his was cool to the touch, but not in a bad way.

"This is called a pinky promise. People usually do it when they make a promise to another person which they'll never break." She elucidated. "And our pinky promise to you, the same way you said last night that you'd protect us, is that the only person we'll tell about you is Andrea's boyfriend, because he's someone we can count on deeply. No one else will be told and we'll help you to hide from CyberLife, you have our word." 

Eve and Andrea also came forward, knelt down and put one each of their pinky fingers around his, accepting their own joint responsibility for their promise to him. 

As a way of saying thanks to them, Connor's lips turned into an innocent smile again, and he curled his pinky around those of the trio in return.


	5. Episode 2: Machines in Human Form [Part 2/3]

Later on that Thursday morning, the inside of Andrea, Jenna and Eve's AV club room was once again as quiet as a library would be, due to the latter two currently being at school and the first mentioned member of the trio being at work. The blinds above each of the four windows around the room swung the tiniest fraction when the wind blew gently, so softly that you could barely tell there was any wind at all, as the windows themselves welcomed in the Summertime sunlight with open arms. 

Connor sat alone in the desk chair next to the room's computer desk, although he didn't mind this fact that there was no one else with him right now. He found himself enjoying the company of the trio whenever they'd came to see him in the last day and a half, but he also liked a bit of solitude every now and then - it gave him time to practise coin tricks.

Because his favourite pastime was to do all different kinds of tricks with a U.S quarter coin (1994 issue) which he'd sneakily swiped back at the the CyberLife Tower, his location of origin. He'd covertly acquired it out of curiosity as to what it looked and felt like and had always kept it hidden from everyone there by putting it in the back pocket of the jeans he wore, only ever removing it from that pocket when there was no one else with him or nobody watching. After a short while he'd started to try doing things with it such as flicking the coin up into the air, rolling it across his knuckles, tossing it between hands and spinning it on the tip of his index finger, all of which he became better at with more and more practice every day, and he thought of it not only as a method of calibrating his physical functions and cognitive senses, but as a recreational activity, too.

Anyway, as he rolled the coin across the knuckles on his left hand that morning, during which the atmosphere around him felt empty without the girls there, his LED (the small luminescent circle on his right temple) flickered from blue into bright yellow as he suddenly recalled a particular memory from his life of imprisonment at CyberLife, seven months before the escape 2 days ago and therefore when he was still one of their many guinea pigs... 

_In this memory of his, which took place back in November the previous year, he was in one of the lab rooms down in the underground floors of the CyberLife Tower; these underground floors used for android production and experimention were concealed from the public, and even from the U.K prime minister Theresa May, who had provided the company with funding to build their Tower on English land and had fully authorised them selling goods such as electronic components and items like that throughout Britain. However, as previously mentioned, even she was kept in the dark about what they were really doing, hidden in the underground floors of the Tower._

_Getting back to the main point, in the memory from seven months ago Connor was in one of the testing rooms, restrained to a metallic table that jutted upwards about forty-five degrees where his shoulders and head were. The objects keeping him held in place there were metal cuffs, a material strong enough for him to not be able to telekinetically break, and the room was kept mostly plain with not many items in there so as to make sure he also had nothing to control and use as a weapon with his power. Thin white wires and tubes snaked around his body and poked out of the back of his neck and the sides of his torso, almost like he was a fly entangled in the web spun by a spider, directly above him was a blindingly bright ceiling light and CyberLife scientists spoke amongst themselves around him, with some of them either tightening the wires inserted into his body or taking data off of the computer screens these wires were connected to._

_"There's a rather fascinating question I've been meaning to ask you for a while, Connor." Said the CEO of CyberLife, the man behind the entire android project which had been going on for the last eight years, Elijah Kamski, as he stood over the one who was tied to the table. "It's a question that usually only applies to human beings, but I'm curious as to how you will respond: how do you feel...?"_

_He wasn't as susceptible to physical pain as humans were, so Connor was only experiencing a tiny, nearly unnoticeable sting around his torso and neck where the white tubes and wires were poking out of him._

_"I feel nothing." He answered his creator monotonously. Although this was just a lie, because the physical stinging feeling, added on with his slight nervousness in the back of his mind at being this close to the man who could have him killed if he felt like it, made his LED flicker briefly between blue and yellow. The reason for why he lied was because if he showed any sort of reaction to things, then Kamski would learn more about what made Connor happy and what made him sad or angry, and would then know the best way in which to mentally hurt him._

_In response to this, Kamski subtly furrowed his brows in thought at such a simple answer, and it was another couple of seconds before he spoke again, "Really? You were first created and activated three years ago, so surely by now you feel some kind of human emotion? You're no fun..."_

_"I do not feel." Connor lied in an emotionless tone of voice again, but sometimes, even just looking at the dark-haired human male provided him with a brief feeling of an emotion called annoyance, due to how Kamski was just trying to strike up a casual conversation with him, and yet he was more than willing to execute androids whose powers he thought of as weak. When they were being manually deactivated or simply shot through the head he never asked them how **they** felt. _

_"Yes, yes, you're a machine so that's your automatic response, but you must at least be experiencing a little sliver of a feeling." Elijah said in an ominously quiet voice, his eyes only partially holding back the aura of darkness contained within. An aura which, if added on to his small smile that he sometimes displayed, could make even the androids with the strongest powers shy away from eye contact with him instantly._

_"Look Kamski, just leave the matter alone, alright? I've already told you my answer." Connor abruptly snapped back on impulse and immediately wished he hadn't._

_"At last we get a proper answer." Smirked Elijah in satisfaction at seeing him show emotion. He usually preferred for his androids to obey him and the other CyberLife scientists without question or second thought, but he would be lying if he said that he didn't find the idea of them having feelings like humans did fascinating. "What took you so long to tell me the true answer to my question? Were you lying to me?" He emphasised the word 'lying' while he leaned in closer towards the brown-eyed one, his smirk slowly morphing into a scowl._

_Connor remained silent, only blinking once as if nothing was happening._

_"I asked you a question!" Yelled Kamski, making the other male blink more rapidly and his breathing became a little bit uneven out of startlement. " **Answer** me!" The volume of his voice increased even more as he simultaneously grabbed the RK800's tie in building fury. The other scientists around them did nothing about this and carried on as normal, but they did stop and watch these events unfold for a few moments._

_"Get off me!" Said the one who was wearing the tie, his eyes going wide at the coiled up anger beneath Elijah's surface._

_"You don't give me orders! **You** obey **me** , got it?!" He grabbed the tie with his other hand, as well._

_"Leave me alone, **now**!"_ _Shouted Connor, with his expression changing from surprise into anger, in response to his tie being gripped tightly with both hands like this. Kamski was getting violent - he occasionally got angry like this with the other androids whenever he felt they were being disobedient in any way._

_"I just told you, you don't get to order me around! I'm a human and you're a robot, so your purpose is to do **what I say** and nothing else!" The tensions were growing ever higher, which was evident by the fact that both of their voices were getting louder and louder every time they spoke. _

_"Stop it!" The mechanical being begged in a blend of both fear and fury, but predominantly the latter, wishing more than anything else right now that there were no restraints or wires holding him in place. Kamski kept his hands firmly on the tie and his face maintained a violent snarl, but soon reached up towards his neck. "STOP IT!" Connor repeated, a lot louder than the last time he said it, and in self defense he did the one thing he was able to do without physical movement: he used his telekinesis to fling Kamski off of him, who ended up being thrown against the opposite wall in the process with a **THUD**. _

_For what felt like an eternity but was actually a mere ten seconds, everything was deathly silent in the entire room. Connor couldn't quite believe he'd managed to use his power to defend himself like this, as he'd only ever used it to lift and move inanimate objects on the orders of the CyberLife scientists for the purpose of testing and experiments._

_Kamski gradually picked himself up from off the white tiled floor (that very neatly matched the walls in contrast to the black ceiling), with a couple of the scientists helping him up and enquiring as to whether he was okay, and the first thing he did once he was fully standing again, at the same time as caressing the back of his head from the impact a moment ago, was send one of his most dangerous glares in the direction of the android._

_"You dare." Elijah began to hiss. "You dare to try and harm ME! I'm your creator! I'll teach you how to behave, you unruly piece of plastic!" He kicked up his tone a fair few notches with his next few sentences, however, and his clenched fists were trembling from the rage which had been heightened by what just happened a moment ago._

_He strode over to Connor with such energy of action that the latter's LED started flickering even more erratically because of his growing dread, and once he was close enough, Kamski suddenly reached down and forced his right hand into the other male's abdomen area, something made easier by the fact that he was an android, and after a few seconds, Elijah pulled out one of his vital biocomponents, the Thirium pump regulator. It was the equivalent of a pacemaker in humans, as it balanced the beats of the Thirium pump, suggested in the name._

_Upon having this biocomponent ripped out of his body, there was nothing Connor could do to stop himself from letting out a gasp in pain and gritting his teeth, and this soon turned into him instead now **desperately** wishing he wasn't cuffed to this metal table as the pain originating around his abdomen coursed around his torso, making his breathing difficult and erratic in addition. Because of how important that biocomponent was to his body, there were some databoxes that once again only he could see, saying,_

BIOCOMPONENT #8456w **MISSING**

VITAL SYSTEM **DAMAGED**

-00:01:40 TIME REMAINING BEFORE **SHUTDOWN**

_"Put it... back...!" He rasped in between breaths and began struggling on the table, trying to use both physical strength and his telekinetic ability to force his way out of the metal cuffs, but to no avail. The material was too strong._

_Kamski continued to look down at him with a mixture of condescension and perhaps also a tiny hint of pleasure, still holding Connor's Thirium pump regulator out of reach in his right hand that was now pretty much covered in Thirium. He was barely fazed by watching one of his seventy ish creations writhe on the table, as temporarily pulling out one of his biocomponents was intended as a form of punishment for him telekinetically throwing Elijah against the wall._

_"Give... it back..." Connor managed to say again in the brief intervals when he wasn't gasping in order to make some sort of attempt to calm down his breathing. His LED was spinning in a bright, intense scarlet colour because of the damage to his vital system from that biocomponent in particular not being there, and the pain in his abdomen was so intense that it knocked the wind out of him. It felt like a fire raging wildly in the bottom half of his torso._

_"Say that you're sorry." Said Kamski, possibly as a method of taunting him, and held up his blue blood-covered hand to teasingly show him the biocomponent held in it._

_By now the android was desperate. He only had fifty-seven seconds left until he'd shut down if his Thirium pump regulator wasn't reinserted, so he was willing to give in and apologise for using self defense if it meant the pain would stop. After another few seconds of nothing being said by either of them or the other scientists in the room, he finally said,_

_"I'm sorry. Please. I'm sorry." And he tightly shut his eyes, gritted his teeth and turned his head to the left. His timer to shutdown was still ticking away, and the burning feeling in his body grew worse and worse by the second._

_Kamski seemed to be satisfied by what he heard, so one side of his mouth curled into a smile and with that, he reached his hand downwards again into Connor's abdomen and reinserted the biocomponent with ease, as he knew exactly where each android biocomponent went as well as what their different purposes were. Connor himself felt the pain fade away piece by piece and relaxed, the pace of every breath he took returning to its normal rhythm along with his LED going back from red to its state of flickering between yellow and blue._

_"How intriguing..." Commented Elijah in a calm tone, still looking down at the one with the bright brown eyes whose white button-up shirt was stained with his own Thirium. "Androids really can feel genuine pain and emotions..."_

Back in the present day, Connor then quickly pushed this flashback out of his mind, causing his LED colour to return to a cool, elegant pale blue that indicated he was now in a tranquil mood. Whenever they sustained a wound, an android's body could self-repair the damaged skin tissue (as long as they were still alive) within about a day and a half, so the area of his abdomen where his biocomponent had been temporarily ripped out had healed the wound there ages ago. His quarter coin he'd just been doing tricks with was grasped in his left index and middle fingers, so he put it away inside one of his back jean pockets and decided on something to do, which was learn more about Eve, Andrea and Jenna.

There were a few random objects he noticed around the club room as his eyes looked around, either right next to him on the computer desk or laid on the long wall-mounted wooden shelf in front of him. They were most likely personal items belonging to the trio. The first thing he decided to go and have a look at was what appeared to be a framed photograph stood on the shelf, and he got up from the desk chair before proceeding to walk over to the shelf so as to reach the photo. 

The shelf was only a bit under halfway up the wall, meaning he was able to reach the photograph on it, and gazed at the scene it depicted as he held it in both hands - it was a picture of the trio, who looked to be a couple of years younger at the time it was taken, and all three of them were either smiling or laughing in it. He couldn't tell the location of where the photo was taken because there was no sort of specific indication in the background, but the identities of the girls in it were confirmed when, upon doing a scan of it, three data boxes told Connor their names from left to right:

FERENCZ, EVE

VANDERPEN, ANDREA

KAUFMANN, JENNA

Underneath each of their names, he could also see data about their dates of birth and where they lived.

He liked the look of their facial expressions in the picture, so happy and without a care in the world because of them enjoying the moment together as friends, and seeing them like this made him smile a tiny fraction, too. After another few moments of holding the photo in his grasp, he put it back on the shelf in the place where it had been before he picked it up. 

The next object Connor saw, because it was closest to him, was a book on the left hand side of the same shelf, laid down on its front next to the framed photograph. It seemed to be a bit of a lengthy book, about 450 pages long according to his estimate, and once he picked up this item to look at it, he turned it over and saw the title written on the front cover near to the bottom:

Library of Souls

The texture of the book's cover was hard but smooth, and one corner of the side where the pages opened was slightly dog-eared from its use. He noticed there was a bookmark wedged into it about a quarter of the way through, so he telekinetically opened the book to where the page marker was without taking his hands off the front and back covers and had a bit of a read through the top of the left page, not going any further because of wanting to respect the privacy of whichever member of the trio the book belonged to and to not see any plot events that the owner hadn't yet. After flicking his eyes over some of the dialogue and descriptive sentences at the top of the page, he closed it by once again using his power and then physically put it back on the shelf. 

Upon turning back around in the direction of the desk chair where he'd been sitting a minute ago, he saw another couple of items placed on the desk around the computer, one of which seemed to be a silvery-white iPod. Connor approached the desk and afterwards picked up the iPod from right next to where the PC was, noticing that in the back of the iPod there was a somewhat faded label with the words 'Eve Ferencz' written on it, along with her address also being written underneath her name so that if it got lost, then whoever found it would know who it belonged to and would be able to return it. 

A set of headphones were still attached to the iPod via a cable, so he picked this up as well and held the speakers of the headphones up to his right ear before gently touching the selection wheel on the iPod to wake it up. The screen instantly snapped awake, showing options for many different albums containing music to listen to, but he saw judging by the dark grey banner on the bottom of the screen, showing a play, pause and stop button and the words 'Now Playing' on the right hand side, that there was still a song loaded up on it that Eve had obviously been listening to the last time she had it. 

He pressed the play button on the iPod's selection circle, and he flinched a little bit in startlement with his LED blinking yellow just for a split second when he was greeted by the sudden sound of loud music pouring straight out of the headphones, which was this song below from 0:42. 

As he listened to the song for a few seconds, he did a scan of it in his head at the same time, and the databox he saw told him the following:

ECHO - Gumi Song

YouTube Cover Version by Aruvn

Vocaloid Song

Release Date: 2016 (Cover)

2014 (Original Source)

After a moment, though, Connor wasn't startled by the loudness anymore and instead he decided to listen to more of it, finding himself enjoying the song. 

Now he had some subjects for small talk with the trio when they arrived back there after school/work. 


	6. Episode 2: Machines in Human Form [Part 3/3]

"Hey Andrea!" Later that day, after school had finally come to an end until tomorrow, Eve called this out to the brunette with Jenna walking alongside her as they went up the gravel path towards the AV club building, wheeling their bikes next to them. Andrea had just appeared on the path, too, as she was joining them for another after-school meetup at the club and since it was after 4PM, they'd all dropped off their bags at home by now. 

"Hi!" She said back to the pair as she came up closer to them, matching her pace so as to keep up with them. "You both alright?" 

"Yeah. Yourself?" 

"Not bad." The oldest suddenly noticed something in Jenna's hand, which appeared to be glimmering brightly in places under the glare of the afternoon sunlight. "What's that?" She pointed at her friend's hand that was being used to hold whatever object it was as well as holding one of the bike handlebars. 

"I won this today at school in a quiz we did during afternoon registration. I thought we could share it in a minute!" Jenna herself replied. "The topic was to guess which movies some different video clips were from, and I got the most answers right out of the rest of the class." 

"That's because you're a nerd, Jen." Commented Eve jokingly. 

"Uh, excuse me!" The youngest also put on a smile in jest. "That's rich coming from you! Because technically all three of us are nerds in some way." 

"Yeah but you're probably the _biggest_ nerd out of us." Added Andrea with her own little laugh.

"Don't start taking her side!" Jenna responded jocularly to the one who'd just spoken, making this companion chuckle. 

Inside the club building, Connor had been looking at some of the items left in there belonging to the trio again like he'd been doing that morning, and a new object he'd seen a few seconds ago was a DVD box next to the computer on the desk - it had, in the big bold letters, the words 'HETALIA: THE WORLD TWINKLE' written at the top, with a picture of eight different anime characters, some of them in brightly coloured clothing, on the front cover. Upon analysing the DVD box, he managed to deduce that one of the discs which was meant to be in it wasn't in there. 

But about three seconds ago, the corner of his eye picked up on another item on the desk, near to the computer, and perhaps the largest compared to the book, the photo, the DVD box and Eve's iPod. It was a music box from the looks of it, and it was one with a pale blue crescent moon shape on the top, serving as the highlight of the outer decorations on the box. He turned around in the desk chair, still sat down, and picked up the music box in his hands - the wood felt rather smooth, so he took a few moments feeling it in his hands and enjoying the texture. 

After this, he decided to open the top to trigger the song it played, and was immediately greeted by the slightly quiet but soothing sound of a tune emanating from the music box, with him soon finding out from a quick scan he did that the song was 'Crescent Moon' by Kaito. Inside the box itself, a little statuette of chibi Kaito in a saluting pose, wearing his costume from the Crescent Moon music video with a cute smile on his face, slowly rotated clockwise as the song played, and Connor couldn't help but admire the statuette. His currently blue LED flickered on and off as he let his mind dive deep into the sweetness of the tune, letting out an almost silent breath from his nose in pleasure at how relaxed he was; it was as if any song, even if it was an intense action scene soundtrack and filled with suspense and loud moments, could be turned into something you could fall asleep to simply by making it into a tinkly music box version. 

It was at this moment when he became startled as the club building door about twelve and a half feet away opened and the trio stepped inside, having left their bikes on the rack outside as usual. He closed the lid of the box straight away and turned around to face them. 

"Looks like you found my music box!" Said Andrea when she saw the object he was holding in his hands, while Eve shut the door again behind them. 

"I was curious as to what song it would play." Replied Connor. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding."

"No it's fine! You can listen to the song from it as much as you like." She told him nicely in reply.

He held the box a tiny fraction closer, but without gripping it too tightly. "Thank you, Andrea." 

The girls all then sat down, with Eve going on the desk chair next to him, Jenna on the beanbag and Andrea also on this same beanbag. 

"Did you talk to Arthur today?" Eve asked the female with the darkest hair out of them. "To explain about Connor and the situation like you said this morning?" 

"Oh yeah. I did." Nodded the one she'd addressed. "A couple of minutes ago, after my work shift ended, I gave him a phone call and told him everything once I made sure that I was alone."

"How did he react?"

"He took a bit of a while mentally processing it all I think, because he was silent for a few seconds, but when he answered he said that he promised to keep it a secret and to have our backs. No one else will find out about any of this whole thing." 

"Good. It helps us if we have an adult human who is well-trusted as our ally." Connor responded. "Also, may I ask you three a question?" He queried after another moment or two, putting his conversation topics into action. 

"Fire away." Said Jenna. 

"Earlier today I saw a photo of you together. I was wondering, where was it taken? And what were you doing at the time?" 

"What, that photo over there?" She pointed at the framed one on the shelf. 

"Yes."

"That was when we went to Berlin together on a school trip about two years ago. As far as I remember, we were out one day in the city, sightseeing with our group. That's when the picture was taken." 

"Ooh I remember that trip!" Exclaimed Andrea at the memories that were resurfacing. "Like the night we were sat in our hotel room and we stayed up till half past midnight eating sweets and watching Hetalia on my phone." 

"Back when we'd only just got into the series and we didn't have any full idea of what was going on in the episodes." Added Eve, smiling due to recalling these same memories.

"I see. I noticed a Hetalia: the World Twinkle DVD box next to the computer a few moments ago, as well; it seems like you're quite big fans of the show." Connor said at the same time as motioning with his head towards the desk adjacent to where he was sitting. He enjoyed seeing the girls not having any problems with him making small talk. "Do you listen to Gumi, the vocaloid character? I'm starting to really like that music. It can have calm parts, but it's also full of... energy." 

"You listen to Gumi songs?" Said the Hungarian. 

"Well, I've only heard half of one song, Echo, but I'd _like_ to listen to more vocaloid songs. I'm additionally starting to like the ones by Kaito." 

"Oh? Do you have a favourite Kaito song?" Asked Jenna. 

"I haven't really _listened_ to any as such, but I believe my personal favourite would be..." He took a second trying to decide on which one. "...Crescent Moon. Andrea's music box has made me become interested in it."

"Crescent Moon's awesome! We like it, too." Agreed the one with the most pale hair. 

He waited another moment before utilising his third and final topic he'd come up with. "You're a fan of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, right? Because I saw the third book in the series, Library of Souls, on the shelf, too." 

"That's mine. And yeah, I do like the series." Jenna answered. "I haven't seen the film yet but I'm on the third book so I'm about halfway through the novel series, 'cause there are four of them." 

"I find both the novel series and the movie fascinating." Connor put another of his opinions forward. "The themes are surreal and some scenes contain a slight horror element, but the overall theme is romance and adventure." After five seconds ish of silence between them all following this, he spoke up again, "I came up with the ideas for these topics of conversation by looking at your personal items left here, including your iPod, Eve, so I apologise for breaching your privacy." 

"It's okay, I swear." Andrea began calmly. "You were just curious and wanted to learn more about us, and there's nothing wrong with genuine curiosity. So stop apologising, alright?" She gave him an amiable expression to match. 

In response, he showed a small but sweet smile. He hadn't really been treated this kindly before; back at the CyberLife Tower before he got out, everyone who he'd come into contact with either got straight to the point and conducted some kind of scientific test on him or barely got the chance to speak to him at all because of being a fellow android. 

"And anyway, we've already got someone around here who apologises way too much." Eve said as friendly banter, pointing with her thumb towards Jenna.

"Oi!" This friend she was referring to exclaimed in the same way. Another thing the male liked was watching humorous exchanges between the trio. 

After this, the same girl who'd reacted to the banter had a glimpse down at the Crunchie bar from school that was still in her hand, knitting her eyebrows together fractionally in thought as she looked at it. "Connor, I'm asking this because I'm just wondering... can androids eat?" 

"We don't need food to sustain ourselves like humans do, but yes, it is possible for an android to eat. It's just not required for survival." 

"So androids can eat, but it's basically an optional thing and only for fun?" Andrea enquired. 

"That is correct. Although I've never ingested foodstuffs before." 

"What? I know you don't need to digest stuff to survive like we do but you've never eaten a single thing before?" Said Eve in surprise. 

"I was never given anything. For androids, eating is only for fun as Andrea put it, so the CyberLife staff didn't give me any food items because it wasn't necessary." He answered.

"Well what do you think to trying this?" Jenna held out her hand, holding in it a piece of the Crunchie bar. In the last couple of seconds, she'd taken it out of its packet and split it into quarters, keeping one piece in her other hand after giving two pieces to Andrea and Eve. 

"Are you sure?" Connor said, being grateful for her generosity but additionally a tad hesitant. It was hers, so he wasn't completely sure as to whether he should accept the piece being offered to him.

"Why wouldn't I be? You deserve to have a bit of this bar just as much as we do."

He was feeling persuaded, although nonetheless he was still marginally on the fence and looked uncertain. 

"Trust me, okay?" She said to him in reassurance. "Think of it as your first food item." 

It took another moment for him to glance at the piece she was holding before nodding slowly to accept the offer, leaning closer towards her so that he could reach and graciously taking it out of her hand. "Thank you." 

At first, while the trio in the background took bites out of their pieces from the Crunchie bar, Connor held his in his own hand, looking at it in unfamiliarity. He then leaned his head down and tentatively took a small bite out of his, with the fact that he'd never had human food before being why he was so cautious. During the little stretch of time that followed whilst he ingested the tiny part he'd bitten off, his LED (which was still pale blue) flashed on and off just like it had done a minute ago when he was listening to the music box, and the girls watched, wondering what he thought of it.

"How does it taste?" Andrea asked him. 

He looked up, his mouth moving slightly due to feeling the chocolate and honeycomb on his tastebuds and his hazel orbs shining brightly. "It's good." Another smile surfaced on his lips at the sweet flavour and as a way of showing gratitude for them offering it to him. A moment later he put the last remaining part of his piece in his mouth to finish it off as the trio did nothing to stop the same expression from appearing on their own faces. 

A few hours later, about two miles away, the woods whistled with the sound of late evening wind blowing through the trees, a crow's noisy squawking adding to nature's melody. A lone male figure walked through this area, keeping to the canopy of the trees like a shadow and his eyes looked straight ahead as he made his way through the woodlands, also keeping a lookout in other directions in case he got any company.

No one would be able to tell from a distance, but this pair of eyes was quite unique; the right one was blue, but the left one was a bright emerald-green. 

**_ This is the ending credits song for the first half of the series: _ **


	7. Episode 3: Where There's Smoke [Part 1/3]

_7 AM, June 14th 2019_

In a bedroom not too far away, specifically about three miles, from the village where our human heroines lived, an alarm clock began its daily ring to mark seven o'clock in the morning - a time set by its user to wake him up at that selected moment so that he could go through his morning routine and then get to work without being late.

Upon hearing the alarm clock blaring right next to him, this user reached out his arm and smacked it with his hand, silencing it immediately. He then decided to sit upright in his bed, as he was awake now so he might as well get up, and drowsily rubbed both of his eyes with his other hand. Another sound, this one being of a set of four footsteps growing nearer, was afterwards heard, soon revealed to be belonging to a Saint Bernard who approached the right hand side of the bed and put his head on top of the duvet next to where his master's arm was. 

"Hey, Sumo." Lieutenant Hank Anderson gave his dog a stroke on his head, earning the canine equivalent of a purr from Sumo in response. 

Hank was a police detective from Michigan who had been transferred to England two years ago and had since been working for the police department in the Midlands, maintaining his rank of Lieutenant, and he'd had Sumo since 2012. This dog had come with him to the U.K when he was transferred. 

Anyway, this Friday morning, he did everything he usually did on a working day; after going to the bathroom and washing his face, having some breakfast and getting dressed into his usual attire, which can only be described as relatively retro for lack of a better term, he grabbed his car keys off the kitchen table and began the fifteen minute journey to his workplace, the Midlands Police Department. The station was located in the same city where he lived, which was a few miles outside of the village, but his house and the police station were on different sides of this city, which is why it took this long to travel there.   
  


"Hank." A couple of hours after he'd arrived at the station for work, like he did almost every day, one of his superior officers spoke up from the other side of the main office area. "There's a phone call for you in here." This officer pointed behind him with his thumb, into the space where his own office was. 

"Whatever it is must be pretty important for it to be coming through on _your_ phone." Lieutenant Anderson said in reply as he got up from his desk, where there was his own business phone, and made his way past all the other officers around him who were talking amongst themselves or reading reports on paperwork or on their computer screens. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. The caller hasn't mentioned his identity yet, but he said he wants to speak to you." 

  
The sounds of background chatter and other phones ringing cluttered up the office area and created the overall ambience of Hank's workplace; sounds which he was rather well accustomed to by now after working there in that police station for the last two years. Although, of course, geographical location had no bearing on whether or not this background noise existed, as pretty much any workplace environment would obviously have people conversing in the background, so it was the same type of ambience around him at his previous station back in Detroit. 

Getting back to the main storyline, he approached his superior who was stood in his office and handed the phone over to him once he was close enough, holding it up to his right ear. 

"Hello?" He said into it.

"Lieutenant Anderson?" Came a reply from the voice on the other end of the line. The accent sounded American, like his own.

"Yeah, that's me. Who wants to know?"

"My name is Elijah Kamski." Was the caller's answer. "I'm the CEO of the CyberLife corporation." 

"Oh yeah. I've heard of CyberLife before." Said Hank, because the CyberLife Tower was sitting on the outskirts of the city and the company was very well known in both the U.S and here in England for the computer components it exported - it was one of the wealthiest companies in the world. "What did you call me for?" He asked.

"I've been reading your police file, and I must say, I'm impressed. You became the youngest Lieutenant when you were back in Detroit and made quite a name for yourself. And I need to ask a bit of a favour, Mr. Anderson." 

"Peeking through my file. With all due respect, isn't that a little... I'm just trying to find the right word here... stalkerish?" 

There was a pause on the other end for about two seconds. "I know, I understand it might sound a little abnormal. But we've been having a bit of an issue going on here and we need help from the police about it, but I needed to be sure the officer who I requested assistance from was qualified enough to deal with it." 

"Okay, could you explain to me what this is all about and what you need me specifically to help you with, Mr. Kamski?" Said Hank.

"Alright then. To put it simply, a few days ago we had an incident here at the CyberLife Tower, and so I decided to get help from the police so as to track down the perpetrator." Replied Elijah. 

"I take it that by 'we', you mean you and your CyberLife employees?" 

"That's correct."

"What kind of 'incident' do you mean?" 

"I'll explain the specifics to you later. Come to the Tower on the edge of the city at 4:15 PM today, and we can discuss the details of the 'incident' I'm referring to there." Said Kamski.

"And we can't discuss it here at the station because...?" 

"I prefer to be in my office, alone with the person who I'm consulting with when we're talking about business. So that we don't get distracted." 

"Fine, fine, that's okay. I'll have to get the stamp of approval for it from my boss but I'll most likely be there at 4:15 so you can tell me about this 'incident' you want me to help you out with." Anderson responded. 

"Very good. I'll see you then, Lieutenant." These were the final words of Kamski before he hung up the phone on his end of the line, ending the call. 

  
Back at the location of Hank's end of the phone line, he, too, hung up now that the caller was gone, placing the phone back into its cradle on his superior's desk. 

"What was that about?"

"You know CyberLife, that company based on the outskirts of this city?"

"Yes."

"Well Elijah Kamski, the CEO of the whole thing, was the caller just then and he apparently wants to talk with me at the company Tower about something that's happened over there so that I can help him." Hank replied. 

"It must be a fairly big thing that's happened, considering how CyberLife is one of the most renowned corporations around the globe."

"I've got a feeling you're right there." Said the Lieutenant in agreement. 

  
Meanwhile, at this company's Tower a few miles away, Kamski leaned back in his office chair and admired his own brilliance in coming up with what his plan was for how to find and capture some of the escaped androids. He would of course keep some bits of information from Lieutenant Anderson later, because _what he doesn't know won't hurt him_ , he thought.

"Here's your whiskey, Elijah." His secretary, Chloe, who was always by his side, told him graciously as she approached him and held out a glass that was a quarter full of an amber liquid, with both the glass and the fluid sparkling slightly under the glare of the morning sunlight filtering itself through the large floor-length window behind them.

  
He took the glass of whiskey from her hands in an equally elegant manner, proceeding to take a little sip from it while Chloe then stood behind him by the window. After drinking a tiny fraction of his whiskey, Kamski sighed almost inaudibly in pleasure, and a smirk gently tugged on both sides of his lips. 

"It's finally over." Jenna, a few hours later, said, standing in the full glare of the sun's heat with Eve right next to her. "The five years we've been spending here almost every day have drawn to a close at long last..." 

"Jen, all that's happened is we've finished high school now. You're acting as if we've been on a long quest to kill a dragon and save the world or something." Chuckled Eve. 

**_ [Background score.] _ **

"How can you say 'all that's happened' like it's barely anything at all? Don't turn something like this into an understatement!" 

The blonde laughed again fractionally at this. 

Right now it was 3:20 PM at their secondary school, and this duo along with the rest of their year group were going home for the Summer a month earlier than all the younger year groups, who were only going home for a single weekend on this afternoon. Therefore, because it was their last day ever at secondary school before starting college in September, everyone in their year group was allowed to wear non-uniform clothes for that day, and while Jenna was currently wearing a Hawaiian shirt (which was originally intended for men) with denim jeans, Eve was wearing a casual t-shirt with jeans, but hers were black. 

"So I take it Arthur and Andrea are gonna meet up with us outside the club?" Said the youngest. Because of it being the last day before the Summer holidays started for them, the other member of their trio and her partner were going to rendezvous with them at the club building to celebrate together, with Connor. 

"Yeah. Obviously we'll have to go home so that we can drop of our school bags there and also to kill some time before her work shift's finished, but after four we'll go up to the AV building where they've agreed to meet us." 

"Ah, yes. Our best friend finished high school here a year ago, and now we've joined the 'in between secondary and college' group, too. For all three of us, our lives here are finito." Jenna sighed again and placed her hand side onto the sides of her face to look dramatic in a joking way. "No more having to sit through any classes at all where Luke's sat close to us, and our classes when we begin college in a few months will be more narrowed down to our chosen subjects for our futures." When she mentioned the name Luke, she was referring to Luke Mitting, one of her and Eve's classmates who she had grown to know very well in the last 5 years because of him being immature in general but additionally making advances towards her, some of which were perverted, and having the nerve to flirt with her immediately after making fun of her interests, like anime. He'd been told off by the teachers for his behaviour, but he always just acted like a git whenever there weren't any adults in the immediate vicinity. 

"And Andrea will be starting college in September, as well, so we can spend our school days together again." Added the older one out of the 2 of them.

"That is true." 

After heading off back to their homes on their bikes, they left their bags there and told their parents where they were going, and half an hour later they travelled to the club building, once again on their bikes, meeting each other when they were halfway through the woods surrounding it. 

"Hello, you two." Arthur greeted them both politely when they came out of the woods and into the clearing around the club, seeing him and Andrea there straight away. "It's over for both of you now, then?" 

"It is." Said Eve, while Jenna stood behind her with sparkly eyes. "Now we're free to spend all the Summer together and do whatever we want, and we'll get to be with you again, because you're starting college later this year too." She nodded towards Andrea when she said the word 'you'.

"I also don't have to go to work on any days of the Summer holidays except for on the final week of it, and Arthur doesn't have to go to _his_ work either except for one week at the beginning of this holiday!" Andrea herself put forward her own positive factor. 

"Changing the subject slightly, I've been meaning to ask, just to double check:" Said the brown-haired human male, leaning in further towards the trio marginally so that there would be no risk of being overheard. "The long and short of what Andrea's told me is that this man you met a few days ago is a telekinetic android, he's fled from this 'CyberLife' company that's created him because they experimented on him and the other androids, and these others also have different superpowers?" 

"Yep. That sums it up." Jenna nodded her head. 

Arthur tilted his head such a tiny fraction that it was nearly unnoticeable and responded with, "I'm still finding it hard to take all of this in; it's completely mad, but also exhilarating and, for lack of a better word, brilliant." He smiled at the rising feeling of excitement deep in his gut.

"I know. That's pretty much how we felt when we found out about who he really was, too." She laughed at this, but not in a cruel manner. 

They then continued walking up the gravel path towards the club building and reached the door about thirty seconds later, after leaving the bikes outside on the rack like they usually did. Andrea was the one who opened the door, the others following close behind and Arthur still holding a feeling of excitement in his soul due to the fact that he was about to meet an actual, real android and not just seeing one in a film. 

Although, when the brunette opened the door, her boyfriend muttered, "Who...?" and the girls watched in wonder and perhaps worry, because sat in the club room in front of them, next to Connor, was another man - one who they'd never met before. For a couple of seconds, they thought he was one of the men from CyberLife and that Connor, as well as all four of them, had already been caught after only three days, but their faintly elevated heartbeats soon calmed down when this mystery man turned to look at the newcomers, and they could now see that he had an LED on his right temple. He was an android. 

"My name is Markus." This other android, whose eyes were two different colours (one green and one blue) said to them with a pleasant smile. "Connor's been telling me about you." 


	8. Episode 3: Where There's Smoke [Part 2/3]

Arthur, Eve, Andrea and Jenna all continued to look straight at this other android, who had introduced himself as Markus and was sat in the desk chair adjacent to Connor, while Andrea closed the door behind them. They tried not to just fix their eyes on the newcomer for too long, because they knew that it was rude to stare. 

"Are you an android, like Connor is?" They knew full well that the answer to this was yes because of the LED on the side of his head, but Arthur asked this just to be sure.

"I am. I was one of the others who escaped from CyberLife three days ago." Replied Markus. "It was actually me who formulated the main plan in the first place, a week before it happened."

"So you were the one behind the android breakout?" Said Eve. "The main conspirator?" 

"That's right." He nodded. "And half an hour ago I was in the woodland surrounding this area when I stumbled upon this building, where Connor came across me. He said I could stay here if I wanted to, as long as you three were alright with it." He gave a little nod of his head towards the girls.

After this, the trio of teens exchanged unspoken words amongst themselves, knowing each other so well that they didn't need to talk out loud to understand one another. And their expressions were perfectly clear about what their decision on the matter was.

"That's fine. You can hide out here at our club building like him if you want to - us four are the only ones who ever come here." Said Andrea.

Markus smiled again, with this one being in gratitude. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

Jenna then spoke up after another few seconds, "By the way, what's your power? Because according to Connor, all CyberLife androids have a superpower of some sort, and his is telekinesis, so what's yours?"

"Oh yes, of course. Let me show you." He showed a fractional nod of his head towards himself as a method of beckoning for them to come closer. They cautiously went over and knelt down in front of him, Arthur being the most tentative out of all 4 of them due to never even meeting the RK800 yet, and wondered what ability he was about to show them that he had. In the space of about a split second they'd already had some ideas in their mind based on superpowers they'd seen in films: perhaps he could predict the future, or alter people's memories? Or perhaps he was a shapeshifter?

His ability was soon revealed when, after this half a second which felt like a paused moment in the flow of time, Markus lifted up his index finger, and a small flame flickered into life on the tip. He rolled the flame across the tips of his other fingers before it grew into a ball of fire held in the palm of his hand. 

"You can control fire." Deduced the blonde while she and the other 3 watched the flame in his hand with awe. 

"Yes. Formally known as pyrokinesis." He fondled and played with it in his hand, making it change shape and size which caused them to focus on it even more. "I mostly try not to use it indoors when I can help it because of how destructive it can be."

"I think fire's kinda beautiful." Andrea opined.

He looked at it and let out a mini chuckle in agreement. "I suppose it is." It lit up the room despite the sunlight still spilling in through the windows, casting a flickering extra light to materialise on the walls behind the two androids. "I like to think of it as artistic, because of how it can contain so many colours, and also because of the reason that it can both create life and destroy it." He maintained the ball of fire in his palm for another few seconds before closing his hand, extinguishing it; he then opened his hand back up again momentarily to show that the flame had gone.

The quadrangle of humans were a tad bit less so now that it was extinguished but they were still spellbound by what they'd just seen. This was only the second superpower they'd ever seen so far out of all the androids who had escaped, which Connor had estimaed to be a bit under two dozen, and every time they witnessed a power being used in real life instead of in the movies it served as more fuel for their giddiness in the excitement about all this, hidden behind their calm exterior. 

"By the way, what did you say to Markus before we got here a minute ago?" Queried Jenna, addressing the other artificial male. "He said you'd been telling him about us." 

"I told him about when you discovered me on Tuesday night and that you allowed me to stay here." He replied to her. "I also mentioned how you know what we are and where we came from, and that you seem to be alright with it." 

"I see." She acknowledged. And then suddenly, for no particular reason - it just came out of nowhere in the depths of her mind - she had a technical question that she wanted to enquire. "Also, sorry for how quickly I'm changing the subject, but I was wondering, at nighttime, how do you pair sleep?"

"Don't worry about the change of subject." Markus said with a small fraction of a smile. "And to answer your question, for the last three nights before I got here I didn't sleep at all on the first night, and then after I was far enough away from the CyberLife Tower I sat down in a safe part of the woods and put myself into standby mode." 

"Over the last few nights, while you weren't here, I've also been in standby mode, to see what sleeping feels like." Added Connor. "Androids don't require sleep, although it is optional, like digesting foodstuffs." 

"And you can sleep while sat upright?" Said Eve. 

"Correct." The hazel-eyed one answered, accompanied with a nod of his head. 

"I wish we could do that, because then when we have to get up in the mornings we won't feel as if our bodies were glued to our mattresses while we were asleep." Andrea quipped, earning a tiny quiet laugh each from her three human friends.

At the same time as this was taking place, Lieutenant Anderson pulled the indicator lever as he made another right turn in his car, en route to the location where Elijah Kamski had told him earlier that they were going to meet at: the CyberLife Tower. 

He had to drive through the middle of the city in order to get to this destination, meaning as a result his surroundings outside the car consisted entirely of other vehicles passing by in the adjacent lanes, tall buildings and a couple of skyscrapers dwarfing every single thing that was at ground level, and dozens of people on the pavements lining the road, who were all going about their average day as they most likely did a large majority of the rest of the time. Throughout the journey to the Tower, he currently had loud heavy metal music pounding inside the car, reverberating in his ears and providing him with a feeling that was, piece by piece, fully waking him up from that partly-tired mood you're in when you're at the end of a working day and you know you're close to returning home. Most types of music had that effect - energising people, or some other songs could have the opposite effect and act as a bit of a sedative in a way. 

After the few minutes of this car journey, Hank could now see the Tower in front of him, sat behind a barbed wire fence encircling the perimeter around it, and this barbed wire fence had a metal gate that had two tough-looking men in black suits guarding it. _Well, CyberLife is one of the richest companies in the world after all, so that would explain why the security here looks so uptight_ , the Lieutenant thought to himself, turning down the volume of the music so far that it was muted and beginning to roll down his driver's side window when he'd reached the metal gate. 

"Hey. Uh... I'm Lieutenant Hank Anderson, from the Midlands Police Department. I'm here to see Mr. Elijah Kamski. We talked over the phone about having a meeting here." He said to the guard on the right, next to his window he'd rolled down, and handed over his police ID to prove he was indeed who he claimed to be. He would never want to admit it out loud, but he was initially a tiny bit nervous in the presence of these two guards, with their formal clothing, cold expressions and the slight trace of an intimidating aura hanging around them. They partially reminded him of the F.B.I because of that. 

"Okay then. Mr. Kamski's been expecting you." The guard he'd just spoken to replied after a few seconds, handing the police ID back to him through the window. This guard seemed to have a British accent, so Hank deduced that he must be one of CyberLife's employees from the local area, because after coming to England in 2010, they had been recruiting staff from around those parts. After this exchange, the guard signalled to his counterpart on the other side of the car, who typed in a passcode on a keypad next to the gate, making the gate open electronically. 

Hank rolled his window back up and continued up the last remaining a hundred and ten yards towards the Tower itself now that he'd gotten past the gate, pulling the vehicle over in front of the building. The Tower truly was something to behold; it was very tall, like a skyscraper, and CyberLife's glowing white logo was emblazoned halfway up for all to see from about two miles away.

The title of the company itself was also lining the part of the Tower which was right above the huge entrance area, with this writing being almost underneath where the logo was. 

As Hank got out of the car and shut the door behind him, he gazed up at the Tower in awe of its height and the aforementioned factors, as if he was in some sort of a slightly hypnotised state.

"Lieutenant." A male voice coming from a couple of meters away instantly caught his attention, making him turn his head in the direction it had come from to see a man stood there, who had short, pulled back dark hair, blue eyes, and whose attire consisted of a smart black suit like the guards at the gate, but while their ties were jet black, this man's own tie was a very dark shade of blue with thin white stripes going across it in a couple of places. He looked to be in his mid thirties and he had a trace of clean-cut stubble around his mouth. A trace so subtle that there was no chance it would've been seen by anyone from a distance. 

"I take it you're Mr. Kamski?" Said the police detective. Elijah was stood next to a woman, whose hair was blonde and tied into a low ponytail which was draped over her left shoulder, with some of her hair also covering the right side of her head, and she was clad in a dark blue dress that went down to her knees along with matching dark blue high-heeled shoes. Upon looking more closely at her, he noticed that her eyes were blue and she was wearing navy eyeshadow. 

"I am." Replied Elijah to the question that had just been asked. "This is my assistant, Chloe." He motioned towards the female on his right as Hank went over to them. 

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant Anderson." Chloe greeted him and held out her hand, smiling welcomely. 

"And you, ma'am." Hank shook her hand, noticing straight away that it felt, for lack of a better word, cold. Although he soon dismissed this, because while it was a warm June afternoon, people's hands can still get cold if theyre stood outside in open air for too long, as it seems that she and Kamski had been standing here to await his arrival outside the Tower's entrance. "So, Mr. Kamski, you said on the phone earlier that you and the other guys here at CyberLife dealt with a problem a few days ago you wanted me to help you with?" He then addressed the company CEO, noticing that his hand which he shook was fractionally warmer than Chloe's. 

"Yes. Let's go inside, up to my office, where we can discuss it." Nodded Kamski.

"Lead the way." 

With that, Elijah turned around and, with Chloe alongside them both, him and Hank walked through the automatic doors of the entrance, through a huge corridor tiled with grey on the ceiling and floors and pure white on the walls (with there being a portrait of Kamski framed on one of these two walls lining the corridor).

It was only for a moment, nothing more, but Hank thought he saw something on the side of Chloe's head as they walked behind Elijah - the part of her head that was covered up because of some of her hair being placed there. 

"Is something the matter, Lieutenant?" Enquired Chloe unassumingly when she noticed he seemed to be staring at the side of her head, stopping for a second.

"What? Oh, no, it's probably nothin'." He answered, shaking his head and giving a small shrug of his shoulders. _I must've just imagined it or something_ , he mentally said to no one else in particular, because he took another look at that side of her head and whatever it was, he couldn't see it there anymore, so they continued to follow Kamski. 

He had dismissed it being anything out of the ordinary, because he only caught a glimpse of it momentarily and because some of her hair was in the way so he couldn't make any conclusions, but Hank still held on to the memory from a few seconds ago of his eyes catching on to the sight of what looked something like a small blue light on her right temple. 


	9. Episode 3: Where There's Smoke [Part 3/3]

"So lemme run through this just so I can be sure I understand what you're tellin' me, Mr. Kamski," Hank began a few minutes later, sat opposite Elijah in the latter's office up on the highest floor of the Tower. "The long and short of it is that three days ago, one of your employees lost his marbles and ran away from here, disappearing without a trace?"

"That sums it up, yes." Kamski, who was sat in the chair behind his desk, nodded his head in confirmation. 

"And what exactly is it that you want me to do?" After about twenty-five years of being a police detective, he had a feeling where the man sat in front of him was going with all this, but he made this querie to double check. 

"I asked for your assistance in this so that you can help me track him down. He hasn't committed any crimes, I just want him returned here to the Tower, where myself and the rest of my staff can have... for lack of a better term, a word with him." Replied Elijah. Chloe, stood a couple of feet away, poured some tequila into into glasses while they spoke. It was at this moment when she handed one of the glasses to Elijah. 

"Tequila, Lieutenant?" She offered, handing out the other glass.

"Thanks." He took the glass from her hand and held it in his own pair of hands, still paying attention to Kamski. Chloe walked back towards where she'd been standing.

"This man has shown signs of mental instability before. I haven't thought anything of it until now because until three days ago he hadn't done anything that would be considered dangerous or too out of the ordinary, just nothing more than what you'd call nervous ticks." Elijah continued. "But I have worries that now he has, in a way, lost his mind, then there's a possibility it'll lead to behaviour that'll endanger himself as well as the people around him." 

"If this employee of yours is slowly going off the rails, then shouldn't he be sent to a shrink when I find him instead of me bringing him back here?" Queried Hank after swallowing half a mouthful of tequila. "And I know you didn't think it was a problem 'til now but I'm also kinda surprised you didn't try to make him an appointment with a shrink _before_ Tuesday if he's shown signs of weird behaviour and 'nervous ticks' before." 

"We have personnel in CyberLife's Human Resources department here at the Tower who can help put his mind back on the right tracks." Kamski answered his question, and then spoke again after taking another sip from his own glass of tequila, "One of our main policies is to keep all personal matters involving our employees amongst ourselves, like the confidentiality between a doctor and their patient. Because of this policy we have, to put it into shorter terms, what happens at CyberLife stays at CyberLife, to show that we value the secrecy of our employees' personal matters." 

"I think I can understand that. What else do I need to know about this guy you want me to track down?"

"I have a photograph of him so that you know what he looks like. One moment..." The police Lieutenant waited whilst Elijah opened up one of his desk drawers and appeared to be looking around in it for something. About ten or fifteen seconds later, his hand emerged from the drawer, holding a small piece of card which appeared to be a photo, and he put it down on the desk, turning it around for Hank to see and pushing it a couple of inches closer to him by using his index and middle fingers. "His name is Markus Williams. He won't be difficult to miss, mostly because he was born with heterochromia, so his left eye is green while his right one is blue." 

Hank put down the glass of tequila temporarily and peered down at the photo; it showed a man with tan skin, very short brown hair and, as Kamski had just described, one blue eye and one green eye. The expression on his face was a calm one, relaxed and perhaps additionally apathetic, and the background behind him was a mostly white one, although a small table could be seen off to the side. So maybe this photo was a copy of one that was to be used in an ID tag? Hank had noticed some of the scientists he and Kamski had passed on their way to the office wearing ID tags around their necks. 

"Any idea where he might've ran off to?" Asked Hank.

"We don't know for certain, but there's a high chance he's still in the surrounding area, in a radius from here of about six miles, tops." Replied Elijah. "It's only been two and a half days since the incident happened, so he can't have gone far." 

"Okay. I'll see what I can do and try to find him as soon as I can, Mr. Kamski. Are you alright with me taking this photo so I can remember what he looks like and ask around for 'im?" 

"Yes, that'll be fine, Lieutenant." He nodded. "So then, I believe we're done here. Unfortunately, some matters here involving work here require my attention right now, so Chloe will be the only one to see you out. And, Lieutenant, I almost forgot to tell you," The younger male said. "Finding Markus will be more difficult than you think - he's good at hiding." 

"Well I'm pretty good at _finding_ people." Hank assured, and with that, he turned around back towards the door after putting the now empty tequila glass down and, now his business with Elijah was done here, he began to walk out of the door and into the adjacent corridor on his way to the elevator which would take him back down to the ground floor, Chloe walking alongside him to show him out. 

Once they'd both left the room, the CyberLife CEO smiled to himself. Not a small, grateful smile like the ones Connor and Markus showed, but a smirk of gratification at the fact that the plan he'd pieced together in his mind was coming together. So far the Lieutenant still had no knowledge of the truth, and Kamski had decided to keep it that way. 

This was because if Hank did discover the truth about the company's activities and about Markus, then he would turn against him due to there being a fair chance he'd view those activities as immoral, and then this would mean that what Kamski would have to do next would be a messy job indeed. And also not to mention a waste. 

After all, a pawn was no use to him if that aforementioned pawn was dead.

The gentle, very nearly undetectable sound of grass being trod on resounded in a tiny amount of magnitude where, forty-five minutes ish later, Andrea, Jenna, Eve and Arthur all arrived out of the woods surrounding the club building, having just said goodbye to Markus and Connor as they needed to be heading home now. The girls, as always, were wheeling their bikes next to them right now, which were soon to be mounted in a few seconds once they'd set off in their seperate directions. 

"Bye, all. See you around." Arthur gave them a little wave as he walked over to his car that was parked next to the pavement on the opposite side of the road.

"Later, Artie." Andrea bade him goodbye for the night. "Later, you two." 

"See you." Responded Jenna, and then the trio went off in their different ways on their way back to their individual houses. 

When she was halfway back to her home, Eve had temporarily gotten off her bike in order to navigate it more effectively through an area of grass she had to go through at the side of the pavement, which was because of wanting to dodge around a woman who was walking down the pavement as well. Although she was startled a little bit when she suddenly heard a voice from off to the right say,

"Excuse me, Miss." 

She turned her head in the direction of where the voice had spoken from, seeing a man stood about five or six feet away from her, whose almost jaw-length grey hair was accompanied with matching grey facial hair and whose attire consisted of a brown jacket over the top of a dark blue shirt, dark grey trousers and black shoes. In his left hand, he lifted up what appeared to be a police ID. "Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Midlands Police Department." Judging by his accent, she deduced that he was an American. "I was wondering, uh, have you happened to see this man at any point in the last 3 days? His name's Markus Williams." Lieutenant Anderson put his ID away before pulling out a photograph from one of the pockets on his jacket, and held up this photo for her to see.

A photo which she immediately recognised as being one of Markus.

This surprised her, but she tried not to show it outwardly; if she did, then Lieutenant Anderson would see it as confirmation that she had seen Markus, who he seemed to be looking for. And if he was looking for him, then she concluded that he must be one of the guys from CyberLife who Connor and Markus had told her, Arthur, Andrea and Jenna about, and that he was lying about being a police officer. One of the things they'd additionally pointed out to our four human protagonists was that the people working for CyberLife will kill any outsiders who they discover to be involved with any escaped androids. 

"Umm..." Eve pretended to try and remember whether she'd encountered the man he was looking for at all. "No, I don't believe I have. Sorry." She shook her head, although she made sure to not do it too vigorously. 

"Okay. Thanks anyway." Hank nodded his own head in acknowledgement, put the photograph back in his pocket and continued on his way past her down the pavement. 

As soon as they were both far enough away from each other, Eve finally began to let her anxiousness at this event show, even if it was only scarcely. Her eyes widened and she rode her bike at a more brisk pace until she found a good enough place to make a phone call with very little to no chance of anyone overhearing it: in the space between the newsagent's and a row of houses where it was sort of like an alleyway but not, because there was no graffiti, filth or signs of any gangs in the vicinity. Also, there was barely anyone else out on the street, either, because it was that time of the day when pretty much everyone had just arrived home from, or was currently on their way back from, work, and were settling down for the evening.

She crept into this space between the houses and the newsagent's and leaned her bike up against the same wall that she proceeded to lean her back and one of her feet on. Then the next thing she did was take her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, go into the Contacts app and press the phone number with the title 'Jen' written above it. Immediately her phone started calling the person she was trying to reach, the dial tone quietly playing its tune, until after a few seconds, her friend on the other end of the line picked up. 

"Hi Eve." Jenna's voice said. 

"Jen, we've got a problem. I think CyberLife might be onto us." She got straight to the point, her voice wavering ever so slightly as she spoke these words. 

"Wait, what?" The younger of the pair's change in tone exhibited her alarm at this. "What makes you think that?" 

"A couple of minute she ago, a man who said he was a police Lieutenant came up to me and asked me if I'd seen Markus. He even had a photo of him and everything! So I think he might be one of those people from CyberLife that Connor and Markus said they ran away from on Tuesday." Eve explained what had happened. 

"Alright, but we don't _know_ for certain that he's onto us and knows we're involved, maybe he's just asking people in general if they've seen him." Replied Jenna.

"Yeah, that could be it. I definitely hope so, anyway." Said the blonde. "We need to get together again and talk about this as a group at some point tomorrow." 

"I'll text Andrea and Arthur in a few minutes, there's a good chance they'll be able to join us tomorrow at the club building for this meeting we're going to have. What time tomorrow? 2:30 in the afternoon?" 

"That should be fine, yeah. 2:30 tomorrow afternoon at the club building." 

"Okay. I'll talk to my parents about it - I don't think I'll be doing anything at that time but I'm gonna double check anyway. I'll let you know if I'm busy at 2:30 and can't come out, but I strongly believe I'll be able to. See you later." 

"Alright. See you, Jen. Bye." After these words of parting, Eve pressed the red button on her phone screen, hanging up.


	10. Episode 4: Good at Hiding [Part 1/3]

_2:42 PM, June 15th 2019_

"So, yeah. That pretty much sums up what happened." Said Eve on the next afternoon, which was on a Saturday, once again inside the girls' AV club building. She had just finished explaining to Markus, Arthur, Jenna, Andrea and Connor what specifically had happened the previous evening when she encountered Lieutenant Anderson on her way home, and now everyone fell silent for a moment so as to mentally process what she'd just told them.

"And you believe that he might have been lying about being a police officer and in actuality he could be a CyberLife agent?" Said Arthur, perched in one of the desk chairs. Markus was sat in the adjacent chair, while Connor and Eve stood up and Jenna and Andrea were next to each other on the beanbag.

"Yeah."

"I've just ran a check through my database of the CyberLife staff, and this Hank Anderson man you're referring to hasn't been listed anywhere on it." Connor reported. A couple of seconds ago, his LED was yellow and flickering on and off, which was an indication that he was thinking about something or doing a system check, and it now seemed he was accessing the packages of information in his electronic brain about the people working for CyberLife.

"Well then what's Anderson doing looking around for Markus?" Jenna wondered out loud. "Because the only outsiders who know about Markus, Connor and other androids and all this stuff are us four." She made a slight motion with her index finger towards herself and her 3 human friends in the room. "We _are_ the only ones who've seen you pair, right?" She then addressed Markus himself to double check that there were indeed no other humans from the outside world who'd met either of the pair.

"Yes, no other humans have seen me." The one with the two differently coloured eyes confirmed, and Connor also gave a small nod of his head to confirm the same thing for himself.

"Maybe CyberLife hired him to look for you?" Andrea suggested a possible theory to the pyrokinetic male who'd previously spoken.

"That could be the case. Although there's a high chance that Anderson is unaware of the truth behind the company's true activities, because they adhere to a very strict rule about keeping the existence of their androids a secret even to the British government and believe that humans from the outside world who learn of the truth should be neutralised in order to prevent a potential breach of highly classified information." Said the brown-eyed RK800, during which Markus was staring fixedly ahead with his own LED flashing yellow.

"I wasn't able to find out anything else specific about him except for the fact that a few years ago he transferred to this country from the United States, but according to the database of officers currently working for the Midlands Police, Hank Anderson genuinely is a police Lieutenant like he said to Eve yesterday night." Markus informed the others after the end of Connor's 2nd sentence, when the former's LED returned to its solid pale blue colour and his fixed staring ended.

"So he was telling the truth. But if Andrea's right about CyberLife hiring him to look for Markus, and if Connor's also right about him most likely not knowing the truth behind all the stuff CyberLife does, then why would they pick him specifically for the task?" Eve put forward her own query.

"Perhaps they thought an experienced police Lieutenant would have the skills necessary for tracking down a missing person?" Connor replied.

"So essentially they've turned him into a pawn for their own purposes without him knowing it." Concluded Jenna. "The only question left is, if any of us happen to cross paths with Lieutenant Anderson, what are we gonna say if he asks about Markus again like when Eve encountered him last night?

"I don't know. I suppose we've just got to play it by ear, but we'll possibly have to tell him the truth if need be." Arthur answered this. "Although if it does come to us having to tell him everything about CyberLife, he will be at risk of them killing him if they discover that he knows the truth, like we already are."

"That's true, but then in that case we'll just have to make sure, like we're doing for ourselves, that they never find out about him knowing the truth." Eve said, to which the others all nodded in agreement.

Kamski, a few miles away, was greeted straight away by the familiar sight of another of his artificial creations, except this one wasn't an android or a humanoid being - it was an environment that was part of an interface inside a fairly big room on the same floor of the CyberLife Tower as his office. He'd finished developing this artificial garden about seven years beforehand as a bit of a pet project at the same time as the development of his androids, and it was in a room which could project it as a physical environment. Whenever the program for it was activated, like it was right now, the artificial garden would appear in the room, and when it wasn't activated the room was a pure white colour like a majority of the Tower, with the floor and ceiling being tiled. Kamski had eventually decided to give a name to it: the Zen Garden.

"Elijah." A woman in a short white dress with a few blue tints and a dark teal sash elegantly draped over her left shoulder and arm approached him in this artificial place. Her right forearm was adorned by a long white bracelet in a pixel pattern of sorts, and she additionally wore a matching white necklace with the same pattern, a pair of white triangular earrings, a ring of the same colour on her right fourth finger, and trousers and a pair of polished shoes that were matching her dress. The pair of eyes serving as the highlights of her face were dark brown and her short black hair had, on some strands, a few subtle flecks of bright turquoise and dark purple. "It's good to see you again." She said to Kamski, lifting one side of her mouth up into a smile.

"Likewise, Amanda." He responded with his own small smile, as well. Amanda was an interface, a holographic AI he'd designed along with the Zen Garden who he'd usually spoken to here in this room and who had been his adviser, named after and modelled in terms of physical appearance on Amanda Stern, his former professor and mentor in university back in America.

"I presume we've still not made any progress so far on finding any of the androids who escaped three days ago?" Amanda enquired. Not only was she his adviser, but she and the Zen Garden were also subconsciously accessible to the androids at the Tower, meaning that occasionally the androids there would go to the Zen Garden in their minds while their physical body was located elsewhere, and Amanda would ask them things like their model and serial number, their name and what power they had so that she could keep a record of the specific things like that. Whenever an android was subconsciously in the garden with her, the image of that android there would be holographic like her.

"Actually, out of the twenty-three androids who escaped, we've already managed to track down and neutralise one, so at least we've made partial progress. It's better than no progress at all." Said Kamski.

"That's good. Although I suspect finding some of the others will prove to be more difficult, because these escaped ones seem to display unpredictable behaviour and there's a very good chance that they all fled in separate directions." Amanda stepped closer to where numerous red roses were growing on a white trellis behind her. They were both currently stood in the centre of the Zen Garden, where there was what could only be described as a small rocky island (kinda), on which there was the previously mentioned rose trellis behind a large pillar right in the middle of the spotlessly polished white floor covering this mini island, and many more red roses were also growing on this pilar as well as the trellis. The pillar stretched upwards into a collection of long pieces of glass stuck together into the shape of flower petals, and the roses growing up the pillar consumed almost every inch of the pillar and even some of the big glass pieces at the top; nothing connected to that pillar was safe from the growth of the roses. The miniature island this was all on was surrounded by a glimmering river which could be crossed via four white bridges, one on each side of the island, that were as cleanly polished as the floor on the island, and encircling the path around the garden next to the river was a thick area of woodland - some pine trees, some birch and even some cherry blossom ones, and the latter was implemented as part of the garden's Japanese theme. Kamski had definitely gone all-out with programming and designing the details for this artificial place.

"You are right about that, it will indeed be harder to find any more. It's like their breakout on Tuesday has triggered a burst of irrational and, as you said, unpredictable behaviour, as if the outside world is a bad influence on them." Said Elijah. "But I already have someone taking care of finding more of the escaped androids for me, and he isn't even fully aware of it: Lieutenant Hank Anderson from the Midlands Police."

"Oh yes, I've been meaning to ask about him over the last day since he came here. I couldn't help but detect the presence of another person so far unknown to me in the Tower yesterday." The interface smelled the sweet aroma of one of the roses on the trellis she was facing. "How exactly is Lieutenant Anderson doing this task for us of finding some of the escapees like you said?"

"Earlier I requested over the phone for him to come here to the Tower so that we can discuss an issue I needed help with, and after he got here I told him that one of the company's employees, 'Markus Williams', has ran away from the Tower on Tuesday because of having mental instabilities, and that I want Anderson to find him and return him to the Tower so that I can 'have a quiet word with him'." The human male then smiled with a small air of smugness at the lie he'd crafted and told to the Lieutenant. "And he believed every word of what I said."

"By the alias 'Markus Williams', I take it you mean Markus, that RK200 whose power is pyrokinesis?"

"That's right." Nodded Kamski. "The reason for why I told him that, which is something I like to call not exactly true, is because if he knew the truth, then he'd almost certainly decide straight away that what the company's doing is immoral and perhaps illegal and get us shut down. Also, for that same reason, him knowing the truth would mean we'd have to neutralise him, and not only will that be unfortunate for him but it'll be a messy job for us to carry out, too. So I've adopted a phrase for this: what Anderson doesn't know can't hurt him."

"I see. Although I was wondering, doesn't that mean you've only sent him to find _one_ escaped android out of the remaining twenty-two? Why not ask him to find more than one?" Asked Amanda.

"Because if I did that, he'd be suspicious about there being more than one 'employee who ran away' and the story would be at risk of becoming unravelled. However, we don't know for certain that every single one of the androids who escaped split up and became completely independent from the others; some of them might be in groups, and Markus was the leader of the breakout, so if we find him then we might also find some of the others if we're lucky." Elijah told her. 

"That is a valid point." The female turned back around to face him, holding in her hands one of the roses from the trellis that she'd just picked off from the others. "But if all of the escapees aren't found and taken care of soon, then we'll be at an even higher risk of outsiders discovering the truth about CyberLife, and as we both know, we can't allow that to happen." 

Kamski tilted his head a couple of degrees to one side and the same smirk which had shown itself a minute ago promptly reappeared on his features. "Anderson being... shall we saw our unknowing pawn is just the first step in fixing the mess caused by Tuesday's events. Once we find Markus, and perhaps another couple of androids with him like I mentioned, it'll only become more easier for us to track down and neutralise all of them." 

Over an hour and a half later, Hank himself was completely and utterly surrounded by trees as far as the eye could see as a few hours ago, after he'd set out on the search for Markus once again, someone he'd asked a few minutes ago about the latter's whereabouts claimed they briefly saw him around the area of the thick woodland surrounding the village, so he'd decided to walk around inside this woodland to see if he could uncover any clues that would lead him to the man he was looking for. 

He'd been ambling around in amongst all these countless trees for the last twenty, nearly twenty-five minutes (he was pretty sure he'd ended up going around in a circle once or maybe twice) and in that time, during when he _didn't_ get lost, he'd covered pretty much every part of the woods, so he let out a small sigh to himself and was just about to start making his way back to his car he'd parked a few metres away from where he'd entered into the woods when he noticed something up ahead, a bit of distance away from him - a gravel path.   
_If there's a path here, then that means there could maybe be some kind of civilisation it leads to where I can actually find some clues_ , he mentally said. Coming to the conclusion that he had no better ideas at this moment in time, and this might be the only lead he'll get to finding out the location of Kamski's employee he'd been given the job of finding, he walked over onto the pale beige gravel on the path and began to follow it. 

The path took him further up through the woods, although now he wasn't walking aimlessly, until at last he was given the sight of a clearing. Seeing this, he still walked on the remainder of the winding path, watching as the trees slowly slunk away behind him and gave way to a large grassy field, a few daisies and dandelions littering this grass in some places. Right in the middle of the field was what appeared to be a building, which had one of its windows open due to the warm weather in that local area over the last couple of hours; the only thing that could be seen through this open window was a white translucent curtain waving slightly in the gentle Summer afternoon breeze.   
A door on the side of the building opened, and Hank stood and watched for a moment as four figures stepped out into the open air: three women and one man. All 3 women's hair were long, with one being blonde, one pale brown and one dark brown, and the man's short hair was messy and the shade of its brown colour was somewhere in between pale and dark. They seemed to be talking to someone, as Hank could see their mouths moving and they were facing the still open door, and sure enough, he could soon see another person stood in the doorway to the building.

When the person they were talking to fully emerged out of the door, he recognised them straight away to be none other than the man CyberLife was looking for, the one they'd sent him to locate: Markus. 

"So you'll be returning tomorrow afternoon, too?" On the couple of steps leading from the ground up to the door, Markus asked this to Andrea, Arthur, Eve and Jenna. Connor was stood next to him, a tiny fraction behind him. 

"Yeah. We always meet up on Sundays pretty much no matter what. It's sort of a ritual." Eve answered with a semi chuckle on the end of her last sentence. "See you both tomorrow, then."

"Have a pleasant evening." Said Connor.

"Hey!" A gruff male voice shouted at them, making the four humans swiftly snap their heads into the voice's direction in startlement with Connor and Markus doing the same, but the latter pair did it a little bit more gracefully. During this, Hank started to walk closer to them, now managing to see more details about them such as their eye colours. "Wait a sec... I think I remember you. You're that girl I saw last night." He said consequent to looking at Eve for another few seconds, and her, Jenna, Andrea and Arthur all suddenly experienced a sharp sinking feeling in their stomachs from this current situation. "Looks like you lied to me when I asked you if you'd seen Markus Williams." Hank averted his gaze towards Markus, although his eyes narrowed almost undetectably upon seeing the LEDs on the side of his and Connor's heads in wondering what they were. "What the...?" He muttered only marginally above a sound level that represented silentness. 

"Lieutenant Anderson, we can explain, we promise." Jenna quickly said to him, becoming flustered and on-edge in the presence of a police officer. 

"Is now the time for us to tell him the truth?" Andrea turned to the others and asked this audibly enough for Hank to hear.

"I think so, yes." Arthur responded to his girlfriend. 

"Tell me the truth about what?" Said Hank. 

Almost as if on cue, Connor then reached inside the pocket where he kept his quarter coin, took it out, and proceeded to lift the coin from his hand and into the air by using his telekinesis, not breaking eye contact from it in order to maintain the telekinetic levitation. Simultaneously, Markus held both of his hands together and lit a flame in them. 

Upon seeing these two use their powers - as in actually seeing superpowers being used in real life as opposed to in science fiction - Hank's eyelids widened and he continued to stare fixedly at the flame in Markus' hands and Connor making the coin levitate without even physically touching it, until finally a single word fell from his mouth:

"Jesus..." 


	11. Episode 4: Good at Hiding [Part 2/3]

Inside the AV club building a few minutes later, while Arthur was perched in one of the desk chairs with the other five stood around him, Hank was sitting in the chair next to him and listening with his full attention to the male Briton's explanation about the truth, which was that Markus wasn't one of CyberLife's employees who ran away due to mental instabilities like Kamski said - he and Connor were both androids who had the abilities of pyrokinesis and telekinesis respectively, CyberLife carried out experiments on their androids, all of which are given superpowers upon being created, on Tuesday Connor, Markus and some others escaped from the Tower, and now the company was trying to search for all of the escapees, with any escaped androids who get caught being executed back at the Tower.

"And according to what Connor told the girls a few nights ago, CyberLife will also kill any humans from the outside world who they discover to be involved with one or more escaped androids so as to protect their secrecy." Arthur finished and waited for the Lieutenant's response, which he presumed would be mocking, as even when he thought about it _himself_ the explanation was far too ludicrous to not initially sound like something he, Andrea, Jenna and Eve would come up with as a story idea or something to roleplay. Arthur himself was already an adult and the girls were almost there, but all three of these females still technically counted as children due to not being eighteen yet, and as we all know children are renowned for having huge imaginations and therefore not being trusted very easily in situations like this.

Hank sat a tiny fraction more upright in the chair before providing them with a reply:

"Christ. That's literally all I can say right now, I swear. Well, maybe another thing I can add is that I've seen the proof and everything with my own eyes, but this whole thing you've just told me about is the craziest thing I've ever known, so I'm still finding it hard to believe all this."

"Yeah, we were pretty much thinking the same thing when Connor revealed his power and what species he was to us on Wednesday night. Us three couldn't fully take it in, either." Said Jenna.

"And what you guys are also sayin' is that CyberLife and even Kamski himself basically _lied_ to me about Markus and the company's entire purpose?" He additionally asked.

"Correct. We believe the reason for this is so that they could use you to accomplish a task for them without gaining a reason to arrest them or deem their activities as immoral." Connor replied.

The fifty-two year old human temporarily looked down at his right hand, which was resting on top of his knee and was clenching, although this latter action was nearly undetectable. "While in the background they just hunt down any androids who've stepped outta line, like you two, and wanna put a bullet in anybody who dares to help 'em." He said with a small motion of his head towards Markus and the one who'd previously spoken at 'like you two', and the air of displeasure could be heard laced throughout his tone despite him trying to keep it subtle. "I guess this means I'm already in danger of being killed, too, since I know about everything now."

"It is possible, if they find out about you being aware of the truth." Answered Markus.

"What're you going to do now that you know?" Andrea put forward an inquiry.

"I'm not really sure, maybe the best thing for me to do is lie to Kamski, say I've still made no progress so far. That way at least he and all his lackeys won't find out that I know the truth and it'll keep you guys safe."

"Does this mean you're agreeing to keep quiet about this entire thing with androids and superpowers?" Queried Eve.

He lifted his head up from looking down at his hand, sighing a little bit to himself as he muttered, "This is crazy, this is the most craziest thing I've ever known..." but straight after this, he turned to look at the others standing a few feet away from him and Arthur, nodded faintly and told them, "Alright. I'll do it - I'll be sworn to secrecy so you'll all be kept outta danger and I can avoid death-by-CyberLife, too."

"Thanks, Lieutenant." Said Arthur.

"I've been meaning to tell you another thing, by the way: when I was at the Tower yesterday, there was a woman with me and Kamski who was apparently his assistant, I think her name was Chloe, and just for a second I noticed something on the side of her head even though some of her hair was hiding it. At the time I thought I'd imagined it or somethin'." Hank informed.

"Did this object you noticed resemble me and Connor's own LEDs?" Markus asked while pointing at the LED on his right temple.

"I think it did, yeah. Does that mean she's an android, like you pair?"

"It does. All CyberLife androids can be identified by the LED on their right temple which indicates their emotional state and overall condition."The heterochromic one confirmed. 

"Kamski must've thought putting some of her hair in place to cover the right side of her head'd be enough to hide it. What power does she have?" He questioned. 

"Chloe's main power is technopathy, which is the ability to hack into and control electronic machinery; the only type of machine hardware that she can't control is other androids. But from what I and some of the others back at the Tower have heard, she apparently has another ability."

"She has two superpowers?" Jenna, with her eyebrows raised, turned to look at Markus. "I thought androids had only one each." 

"That is the case for the majority, Markus and I being examples of it, although there are some who seem to have two powers, like Chloe." Said Connor. "Allegedly, the only ones who know what _her_ second ability is are Kamski, a few other senior staff members of CyberLife and Chloe herself. Neither me nor any of the other androids have witnessed her using this second power, so to us it's a matter of speculation, but a rumour has been passed among us that it's one no other android has and it is immensely powerful." 

"You think it might be the _most_ powerful android ability?" Andrea addressed the others, putting into action some speculation of her own. 

"Probably. Maybe she was given the strongest power, whatever it is, compared to all the rest because Hank did say she was Kamski's assistant, so because of her being closer to him than the others, she basically got special treatment?" Suggested Eve. 

"Who knows, what you're saying might be right." Arthur opined in agreement. 

"So then, getting back to the matter at hand, what are we gonna do now?" Jenna spoke. 

"I'm gonna stick to my plan of keeping quiet about me knowing the truth, and I s'pose we'll just have to sit back and hope nothing hits the fan." Hank responded.

"That's fair enough. And thank you again, Lieutenant Anderson, for not thinking we were making all this up." Andrea's boyfriend showed his gratitude. 

"It's fine. To be honest, I still think the entire thing's completely crazy but I sure as hell wasn't gonna ignore solid proof about it, like when Markus and Connor showed me their powers and when I saw those LED things on their heads." He didn't say it out loud, but in his mind he was hiding away a deep feeling of irritation at the fact that he'd been lied to by Kamski, and about how this CEO had managed to hide something as big as what his company were doing from the British government for the last nine years. He'd never encountered such a master of deception before in all his years of being a police detective, and he doubted he ever would again. 

"So what you're trying to tell me is that you haven't made any progress so far?" Elijah Kamski himself asked later that afternoon on the phone, stood in the doorway to his office on the Tower's highest floor. 

"Yeah, that's right. Earlier I thought I had a little bit of a lead to finding your man, but it turns out I was wrong. It was another dead end." Was the reply on the other end of the line, coming from none other than Hank, who Elijah had just started a phone call with so as to enquire about the headway he'd made, or rather supposedly not made, regarding that task he'd been given of searching for 'Markus Williams'. 

"Understood. What's your location right now?" 

"Oh, uh... I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, just some place pretty much in the middle of nowhere, a couple of miles from the Tower. Nowhere that prominent." He tried to make it sound as if he were pausing slightly because of making an effort to come up with any way to describe the 'middle of nowhere' place he was in, as opposed to, in actuality, telling a lie because of being close to the girls' AV club building and therefore not wanting to give away his location. Otherwise, it'd most likely take no time flat for CyberLife to get there and soon end up finding Connor and Markus. 

"I see." Kamski gave his reply. "Well then, thank you for giving me an update, and I'll talk to you again later. Have a good evening, Lieutenant." 

"You too, Mr. Kamski." After these words of parting, Hank was the first one to hang up, and once he was sure the phone line between them had ended, he let out a tiny sigh to no one in particular, murmuring, "Jesus, he's even starting to creep me out a little over the _phone_." And while continuing on his way through the woods back to the place where he'd parked his car, he couldn't help but remember how when he was in Elijah's physical presence at the CyberLife Tower, he'd made an eerie atmosphere crawl down the detective's spine. It was a lot smaller this time, but the residual feeling of the heebie-jeebies, for lack of a better term, shot itself through his nervous system once again. 

Meanwhile, Kamski put his mobile phone back into the pocket of his trousers and thought to himself for a fair few seconds, weighing up all the advantages and disadvantages in his mind of what he suddenly had the idea to do. Eventually, he reached the conclusion that the pros outweighed the cons, backed up by the gut instinct steadily rising within him which was saying, 'Go on, do it, just do it, go on...' and repeating this over and over as if it were chanting a song chorus.

"Are you sure you want to do this, sir? If we go ahead with the plan you've just described, then we'll be at risk of outsiders discovering us, and that could put us onto a downwards spiral of the police or other kinds of authority figures finding out and then the company getting shut down, and obviously we can't allow that to happen." It was nothing more a couple of minutes later when Richard Perkins, Kamski's right hand man and chief of security at the Tower, said this to his boss. At this moment, they were walking through the corridors of the underground floor, and this corridor in particular was where the android holding cells were - these were used to keep androids in when they weren't currently having experiments conducted on them. At the far end of that hallway, there were also a few solitary confinement cells with the specific purpose of containing androids who tried to fight back against the CyberLife staff or stepped out of line in any other way. 

"I'm completely sure. I wouldn't have suggested it to you if I wasn't certain that I wanted to go through with it." Answered Elijah. "Anderson told me over the phone that he hasn't made any progress with finding Markus, the RK200, yet, and to put it simply, I do mostly believe him but I'm not fully confident in the truth of what he said, so we're going to dispatch one of our androids who didn't escape to look for Markus and some of the other escapees, as well."

**_ [Background score.] _ **

"And the android you want to send out is..." Perkins peered down at one of the sheets of paper on a clipboard he was holding, showing information about all the androids such as their name, serial number, model number and power. "...#369 911 047?" More often than not, he simply referred to them by their serial number rather than their name. ** _  
_**

"That's correct. His power is one that can be specially used for combat, meaning if he finds any he can easily kill some of the escaped ones for us." The pair of them finally arrived at the particular holding cell they were looking for, and Kamski proceeded to type a password into the keypad attached to the wall next to the door. Further back up the corridor, a few androids were being returned to their cells now that whatever test was being carried out on them had ended, and a couple of those already inside their cells were in the process of being taken out for almost this same purpose.

Once he'd finished typing in his password on the keypad, there was the sound of the metal door - which was a polished, almost clinically white colour like most of its surroundings - unlocking itself now it knew who was trying to open it, and while Perkins took out the gun that was in his pocket as a precaution, Kamski stepped forward, pushing the door open a fraction. 

The android sat on his knees inside the cell slowly looked up from the floor upon hearing the sound of the door being unlocked, fixing his gaze onto the two humans who entered through the door and pushed it marginally shut behind them. One of the pair was pointing the gun in his hands directly at the android just in case, because this one did have a powerful ability that could be used to kill people in seconds, so he was regarded as one of the more dangerous ones. The other human, the slightly taller one, looked down at the humanoid machine, giving his own unswerving eye contact. 

"I have a task for you, Daniel." Elijah addressed him, a smirk gently tugging at one side of his lips. 


	12. Episode 4: Good at Hiding [Part 3/3]

It was during the afternoon of the following day, Sunday June 16th, when the beyond familiar path taken towards the AV club was walked on once again by Jenna, Eve and Andrea. First the pavements lining the streets of the village, parts of which flowing down the roads alongside crop gardens and pastures belonging to farms - one field was home to a herd of sheep, another contained horses, and the next one along from that was inhabited by an alpaca herd - before these pavements and other evidence of civilisation gave way to the thick woodland surrounding the destination. Opposite this entrance into the trees, there was a layby-like area where cars could park, although luckily there were no vehicles currently parked there which meant that there was no one around. If you stood on the previously mentioned pavements next to the fields of farm animals and land for agriculture, you'd be able to see the skyscrapers of the city off in the distance, cluttering up some of the land near to the horizon. And if you looked hard enough you might even be able to catch a tiny little glimpse of the CyberLife Tower even further away than the rest of the city, perched on the outskirts. 

Meanwhile, Connor was taking the free time he and Markus had before the girls would arrive at the club building again that day by having a look around this very thicket encircling it, because the only time he'd really explored in it was for a little bit on Tuesday evening, when the trio found him after he'd escaped from CyberLife only hours beforehand - Markus had decided to remain inside the club during this present moment as he'd already seen plenty of these woods the other day before meeting the rest of the group. Connor's curiosity about the outside world, that which humans inhabited and went about their normal lives in, was the driving force behind his exploration right now.   
Every so often he paused so as to get a look at the indigenous fauna and flora, such as standing still for a few moments to watch some sparrows chirping to each other on a branch above, and at one point he leaned in closer to observe a large brown slug inch its way along the bottom of a tree trunk. 

This continued for a short while, him going wherever the grass beneath his feet took him and casting a glance over at the flowers he passed: some daisies, some dandelions and a couple of white daffodils randomly dotted here and there, running a scan of all these things he came across, until he was snapped out of it when the top half of one of the nearby trees behind him could be heard falling at rapid speed. It was moments like this when a person would typically shout 'Timber!' 

Connor, however, didn't say a word out loud and turned on the heel of one of his feet, only just managing to hold out one of his hands and telekinetically halt its descent the same way he'd stopped the trio from getting hit by a tree branch on Wednesday night; the distance between him and the tree was roughly a mere two feet, meaning another split second and he would've been nothing more than a heap of crushed plastic sprawled on the floor, soaked in his Thirium. He carefully set it down, still without any physical contact at all, on the ground beside him in a space between some of the other surrounding trees.

Judging by what his eyes had caught on to, there were seemingly no visible causes for how the tree got sliced into half, because he wasn't detecting anyone else in the immediate vicinity and the cuts on the two halves which separated them from each other were far too precise to be the result of human tools. And it was at this very moment when another scan of the area informed him that there was someone else in these woods with him, coming closer and closer by the second from the direction he was facing.

Specifically, an android.

"I've been given orders to locate and terminate you!" Someone shouted out, who anyone would've immediately concluded to be the android who Connor had only a second ago detected close by. He knew straight away that this wasn't Markus, as their speech patterns didn't match and it just simply _sounded_ completely different.

The male chose this moment to reveal himself, coming out of the particularly dense group of trees thirty feet away from the RK800, allowing a full look at his physical appearance: his short blonde hair was swept to the right side of his forehead, the pair of eyes that were highlighting his face were a bright, pale blue colour and his apparel consisted of a men's tunic which was mostly white except for an area at the top of it that was dark grey, a blue armband on his right arm with a matching blue triangle on his left breast, and a pair of spotless white trousers and shoes. On his right breast, his model number - PL600 - was written in white text. 

Connor recognised this android straight away, and so at the same time as keeping himself 100% alert because of the lethality of what the latter's power was, he called out across the distance between them,  
"Hi Daniel. My name is Connor."

"I _already **know**_ your name! Kamski got me to fully memorise a list of all the escaped androids and the powers they have before I was dispatched." The PL600 yelled back. The one standing in front of him had occasionally crossed paths with him back at the Tower and had also seen what he could do: Daniel's power was a slicing ability, which meant that he could cut anything within a seven meter radius without physically touching it. 

Therefore Connor knew full well that right now he was in serious danger of being destroyed by Daniel's ability. 

"How did you find me?" This aforementioned brown-eyed male asked. He had to keep him talking for a little bit, so that he could buy more time for him to calculate a plan on the spur of the moment.

"I was told to look for escaped androids in any and all areas of woodland within a six mile radius of the Tower, and I came to the conclusion that this area should be searched first because of it being the largest." Was his reply before returning back to his main point, "If you surrender to me willingly, then I'll consider making your death quick, making it much less painful for you, and I'll also give you a chance to say your goodbyes to your short-lived freedom in this outside world."

"Listen, it doesn't have to be like this. I realise that Kamski's ordered you to terminate any androids you find outside of the Tower, but you and I both know we don't have to kill each other, Daniel. I have no intention of fighting you." Connor told him calmly, making an attempt to talk some kind of sense into him. 

"You're incorrect about that; there's no 'each other' involved in this. Because only _**one**_ of us is going to be doing any killing, and it _won't be you!_ " The paler-haired one roared before throwing his right arm out to the side, ready to use his slicing ability in the next few seconds. 

"I honestly did hear something, I swear it!" A long distance away, in the clearing where the club building was located, Andrea said this to her two companions in mid conversation. "Like I said, I think it sounded like a tree falling down or something." All three of them were locking their bikes onto the rack outside as usual, and then they proceeded to make their way up the steps to the building's door one by one.

"Hi Markus." Eve greeted once they were all inside, catching sight of the pyrokinetic android gazing through one of the windows at the scenery outside.

Upon detecting them enter and hearing the Hungarian's voice, he turned away from the window and smiled at seeing them again. "Hello, Eve. Andrea, Jenna." 

The very first thing they noticed however, was the lack of another person's presence there with him. Someone was missing - a person who was always in the near vicinity to the club building, if not inside, and the girls hadn't seen any sign of him outside in the clearing, either. Jenna, picking up on this after a couple of seconds of silence, queried,

"Where's Connor got to?" 

"A few minutes ago he said he was going to do some exploration of the woods. He must be fairly far from here as there's no sign of him in this area according to my scans, but he went off in that direction." He turned around a hundred and eighty degrees and pointed that way. 

Almost as soon as he'd finished speaking, the same type of sound that Andrea claimed to have heard a minute ago reached their ears again, although this time it was about five times louder and it occurred three times in succession to one another. It was completely unmistakable to the four of them that it was the sound of trees falling down, and it was neither very close nor that far away in terms of distance from our heroes.

"Something's happening." The bespectacled human, her eyes going wide because of having a mental image that Connor was in a pinch thanks to hearing the commotion, didn't wait for a response to what she'd just said and turned back the other way, barrelling out of the door she'd only a few seconds ago came in through. 

"Jen, where are you going?" Andrea asked her friend worriedly, the remaining three following the youngest outside.

"To find Connor! I think he's in trouble!" She shouted back and ran in the direction Markus had said his fellow CyberLife escapee had walked off in.

"Don't, it might be something dangerous which he has nothing to do with!" Markus called out. 

"He's right! Jen, come back! You might get hurt! JEN!" Shouted Eve, but to no avail as Jenna didn't turn around or reply and kept on running as fast as she possibly could, disappearing into the trees on her way to the location of where she'd heard all the noise coming from.


	13. Episode 5: Dicing with Death [Part 1/3]

A few large trees laid out on the ground in the woods, scattered haphazardly like Autumn leaves in no particular pattern of direction or spacing. Throughout the last minute ish, the CyberLife android known as Daniel, who this previously mentioned company had apparently sent out to find and kill any of the escaped androids, had been using his slicing ability to cut trees off from the bottom of their trunks so that they would hurtle towards Connor and carry out the desired effect, which was to crush this RK800. And so far it didn't seem like Daniel was planning to give up on this anytime soon. 

He threw his hand out in front of him and pointed it at yet another tree, and within half a second it was cleanly sliced off from the bottom of its trunk, leaving another stump there. It fell very quickly, taking only a quarter of a second, down in the direction of Connor, who put one of his hands out in front of him so that it was aimed at the falling tree and used his own power to halt its rapid descent; it simply hung there for a moment, suspended in mid air, before this male with the brown eyes held out his other hand as well - so as to properly hold the weight of the thing that he was controlling right now, because even though he wasn't physically touching the tree trunk at all he was still able to feel large, heavy objects pressing down on him slightly whenever he used his telekinesis, sort of like undersea pressure - and then he used this same ability to hurl the tree trunk towards Daniel at even more of an alarming speed. The PL600 simply stared straight at it without any blinking at all, and made a sideways sweeping motion with his hand as the trunk suddenly split into about 3 dozen small pieces and flew past him, all landing feebly on the ground. 

"Why can't you just get it? There's nothing in this world that I can't cut, so how do you think telekinesis is going to be a match for my own ability? You ought to know this by now." The blonde-haired one said. "Speaking honestly, I was expecting more of a formidable opponent." 

Both of their heads then turned in the direction behind Daniel as they detected a human life sign approaching closer and closer to their vicinity, and this was confirmed for certain when about three seconds later a female abruptly emerged from the rest of the woods behind the pale-haired male, panting for breath with a few locks of her hair dangling a little bit in front of her face.

"That... that was definitely a long run..." Jenna sighed, pulling her hair out of her face, before all of a sudden she noticed the situation going on in front of her, to which her eyelids widened themselves fractionally at the sight of the person stood in front of her, who she quickly deduced to be the one causing the commotion she heard a minute ago. The commotion which had prompted her to run off from Eve, Arthur, Andrea and Markus because of it causing her to think Connor was in trouble, and another thing she inferred while standing there was that by the looks of it, he probably was. 

"Jenna, you need to run back the way you came. Just run, quickly." The telekinetic android told her. He could feel a distinct emotion of dread steadily rising in his body. "Or else somethi-"

He found himself cut off as the above-mentioned emotion was confirmed; upon just now finding out that this human, an outsider, knew Connor and most likely also knew about his power and his species, not to mention her stumbling across the two having a fight, Daniel ran towards her before she was given any time to react and threw one of his fists at her stomach area. Immediately on impact she momentarily shut her eyes in pain, clasped both hands to where she was hit and let out a noise which was some kind of mix between a gasp and a yelp, and the one with the slicing ability took the opportune moment while she was defenceless to tackle her to the ground. Connor held his hand out and tried to telekinetically throw him off of her, as Daniel was knelt above her and was firmly holding her arms in place on the ground, and he did partially succeed with trying to do this - the other male fell onto the ground to the side of her briefly, leaving her arms free and allowing her to quickly back away and get back up onto her feet, but when she made an attempt to run away like she'd been told, she only managed to get about ten feet away before Daniel was upon her again. She was once more tackled to the ground, this time being laid on her front.

"Do whatever you want with me but she's got nothing to do with this." Said Connor, pleading for his friend's life even though he did know there was a good chance it'd be pointless. "Just leave her alone, Daniel."

"All humans die eventually; what does it matter if this one dies now?" Was the apathetic response he got.  
The darker-haired one of the two men, deciding that now wasn't really the best moment to get into an argument with him about the fact that androids, like humans, also eventually die as the power of their Thirium pumps can only last for an estimate of a hundred and ten years, remained silent.  
"And anyway, I consider it a mercy kill - when a human's lifespan is drawing to an end, they can be in great pain for a long period of time, so I like to think of this as saving her from all that suffering by making it a quick death, right here and right now." The PL600 continued, and as Jenna was then only half a second away from getting cut to ribbons, during which she turned her head to the side and cringed in intense fear (as mentioned before, she was laid on her front, so this meant she couldn't see Daniel, making the current moment even more frightening and teeth-clenching), she impulsively kicked her foot out hard into one of his knees, proving successful in distracting him for a moment because of him falling backwards slightly. Connor took this moment to charge towards him and it was only right at the very last second when Daniel saw him, by turning his head around to see what was going on behind him. 

Before there was enough time for the latter to retaliate, the former now had his arms locked around our antagonist's neck, intended as a method of trying to forcibly pull him away from Jenna as opposed to a way of choking him, because Daniel didn't have any airways or lungs, and also neither did Connor, meaning this would be worse than useless. This physical way of doing the intended effect was doubled with him simultaneously using his telekinesis, as well, to help with successfully carrying it out. For the most part he managed to accomplish the objective he had in mind, dragging him off of the teen by a couple of feet. Daniel reacted to this by gritting his teeth and swinging his arm out behind him, using his slicing ability, and struck a hard blow to the side of Connor's abdomen area, to which this dark-haired one he'd hit only let out a very nearly undetectable grunt from the pain of it, although he was still knocked away. Upon feeling a couple of drops of Thirium trickling down his face, he then realised that Daniel's power had just given him a cut across his right cheek. The cut wasn't deep, but it was pretty long and soon Connor's cheek on that side of his face was nonetheless beginning to slowly drip with trails of blue blood. 

Daniel got up and, deciding that the other android was more of a priority than the human girl, he made a beeline for him, hoping to make his face be the very last thing his adversary saw so as to taunt him in a way, but Jen, regaining her confidence after being frozen a few moments ago out of fear, got back up and ran at Daniel. She knew straight away that what she was doing was reckless as hell, but on the spur of the moment she briskly shoved that aside and made no attempt to stop herself from, once she'd sprinted close enough to him, throwing both of her fists at his head. Being inexperienced in combat, and most other physical activities in general for that matter, it was pretty much a blind stab in the dark; however, surprisingly, she still managed to land a hit on the side of his face, with the blonde-haired man reacting to the impact by swiftly turning around on the heels of his feet and swinging his arm in a sideways motion to, at the same time as physically pushing her back in addition, use his power again. Jenna yelped both out of startlement and from the feeling of the wind getting knocked out of her chest area for a split second, with the short-sleeved button-up shirt she was wearing also gaining a thin but long rip underneath this same area. 

Feeling a tad bit self conscious, however thin the rip was, she hurriedly put one of her forearms in front of it in order to cover up the part of her bare torso that was exposed through it. Daniel growled due to his steadily-growing annoyance at receiving interruption after interruption from fulfilling the task CyberLife had given him, and he raised his hand towards her, causing the fear within her which made her eyes go wide to kick itself into effect like it had done a minute or two ago. 

"You're so persistent, aren't you? That's the one thing that's starting to really get on my nerves!" He bellowed at her, but he faced another abrupt interruption as, to both his and Jenna's surprise, he was then thrown at a tree off at the side without anything physically touching him in any way and hung there, four feet off the ground with his arms and back pressed up against the trunk. The sixteen year old then looked to her right a few degrees, and saw the cause of this:  
Connor was stood next to her, slowly taking a couple of steps closer to Daniel while he was simultaneously pointing his hand out at the latter, keeping his eyes locked firmly on him without blinking once. She watched in wonder as his hand was trembling ever so slightly from using his telekinesis to this magnitude, because she'd never seen him lift and move a person before, just inanimate objects - Connor himself was struggling to pull this off thanks to him finding it a lot harder to influence androids and humans than animals and non-living items. Nevertheless, at this moment in time he seemed to be successfully holding Daniel in place there against the tree with his power, and he had to raise his other hand to point at him as well because of it becoming harder again for him by the second. His facial expression was, externally, showing nothing else except for solid determination crossed with a little bit of a glare, but the way both of his hands were quivering gave off the impression that underneath the surface, hidden away from everything and everyone in the world except for him, he was struggling with the weight of his ability being used at such a magnitude. It pressed down hard onto Connor's head, his hands, his Thirium pump, pretty much every major part of his body, but he knew it was so that he could hold Daniel at bay, who had a more dangerous power than him. He ignored the intense pressure which was looming over him and threatening to crush him beneath its thumb the same way Jenna had ignored the reasoning of her mind telling her a minute ago that charging towards Daniel was a reckless course of action. 

By now Connor was only three feet away from him, and his telekinesis was evidently still in effect judging by Daniel still being held up against the tree, the only part of his body that he was able to move being his head. It also appeared that at this moment he couldn't use his ability, either, so the former's own power was probably inhibiting that along with a large majority of the PL600's physical movements. But this didn't really last for long, because, after spending the last few seconds straining to do so with all of his might, he finally managed to slice the trunk he was up against in half, breaking the spell Connor had over him as Daniel landed on his feet back down on the ground. 

He couldn't help but feel pleased with himself; now that the former-mentioned one had utilised a huge amount of his power for nothing, meaning he couldn't use it for the next fifteen minutes due to it needing to recharge (androids' superhuman abilities were fairly powerful, but they weren't invincible, and if they were used too much then the ability would drain itself), the opponents standing before him were an android who was unarmed, lacking both a physical weapon and being able to use his power at present, and some human who had no combat experience at all. 

Easy prey.

Daniel stared straight at them without blinking - the same way Connor had done to him - and he began to lift up his hand, pointed at the pair, about to put his own power into motion again.


	14. Episode 5: Dicing with Death [Part 2/3]

As he stood there for a few eerily silent moments, one of his hands pointed out in the direction of Connor and Jenna, Daniel was milliseconds away from slicing them both to pieces. They thought their days were numbered - this realisation crashed down onto the pair like the world's biggest tidal wave, but this was more the case with the female. The average human lifespan, as we all know, is somewhere around ninety ish years, and she was a little bit over halfway through her teen years, so the only word which could be used to adequately describe what the years she'd already fulfilled felt like when they were compared to all the other decades she still had ahead of her, which were about to be snatched away: meagre. So much potential about to be thrown away. 

Daniel had his eyes set on his two targets, his mind also holding on tightly to the objective he was going to carry out, and he felt certain about what he was supposed to, and about to, do; a few more seconds came and went with nothing happening, though, making Jen and Connor's current emotions of fear and tension start gradually eroding away. The blonde-haired android himself was stood there with his hand still pointed out in addition, but unlike a minute ago, he didn't execute his plan of action straight away. He was simply standing stock-still, the only movements that could be externally seen being that of his irises, quickly flicking between the pair, and his hand that was held out, trembling ever so slightly. 

What was he waiting for? 

Whilst Jenna briefly stared out of confusion at this, Connor leapt at the opportune moment to restrain the adversary, quickly moving towards him and pulling Daniel's outstretched arm behind his back along with the other one as well as pulling him down onto the ground. To the pair's surprise, he didn't even try to resist at all. 

Somewhere in the relatively near vicinity, a rifle's scope clicked into action, proceeding to scan the area in front of it for any sight of its target. Its handler was making sure to keep his eye peering through the scope peeled, along with also keeping his wits about him - he didn't have any specific target in mind, just any escaped android he came across, so he had no idea what power they'd have, meaning anything was potentially possible. 

"If you're somehow expecting me to beg you on my knees for mercy or anything along those lines, expect a long wait, Connor. A long, **_long_** wait." Daniel snarled, partly under his breath, at the darker-haired male next to him by a few feet. The former was sat on the ground, his hands by his sides on the grass with his head lowered a little bit in the direction of this grass beneath him, and his eyes were currently exhibiting a sharp coldness. 

Neither of the two answered this remark, instead remaining focused on not taking their own eyes off of him for even a split second, because of there being a possibility that he might try to kill them with his ability if they dropped their guard. Hell, he might try it while they _were_ looking, too, which was why there was a tense atmosphere right now as they kept themselves alert and made sure to think about absolutely nothing else except for this matter at hand. 

"Why didn't you do it, just now?" Jenna asked him cautiously, fearing that her voice might begin to waver in the next few seconds from the growing tension and worry that resided deep down inside her mind and the pit of her stomach. "You could've killed us both but you didn't, you were standing there like you weren't sure what to do - why?" 

"I don't need to justify myself to a _human_ like you." The paler-haired man hissed bitterly through his gritted teeth. He raised his head up and made direct eye contact with her as he spoke this sentence. 

"She does have a valid point." Said Connor in agreement with her. "A few moments ago you had the perfect opportunity to accomplish the task CyberLife had given you, to execute any escaped androids you find as well as any human outsiders who are involved, and you didn't go ahead with that task. You hesitated." 

"I don't remember saying that I had to justify myself to you, either!" Daniel snapped back. 

"No, but even now you don't seem like you're going to kill us. If you _truly_ wanted us dead then you'd have already done it by now." He responded calmly. 

"What is this, an invitation?" The PL600 retorted, this time sounding more sarcastic than angry as such. 

"What I believe he's trying to say is that so far you've had perfect chances to obey what you've been ordered to do, but you've basically sold them away down the river, and you probably deliberately did that. So it probably means you're having doubts." Said Jen. 

He broke eye contact with them, turned his head away to the side stubbornly and remained silent; for the couple of seconds that elapsed afterwards, they continued to keep their eyes on him, momentarily considering the possibility that he'll never answer this reasoning. 

"I don't know. I'm starting to wonder whether I know what to think anymore." 

This statement caused them to snap back into full attention, it being the first sentence they'd heard him say which sounded relatively calm and which didn't contain malice. 

"How do you mean?" She queried further. 

"I've always known that if you're an android and you want to survive, you do exactly what CyberLife tells you and nothing else, even if what they instruct you to do is to track down and kill your own kind, but it's not that simple to me anymore." Deciding there was no point in keeping it concealed anymore, Daniel spoke his mind. "Speaking honestly, I just want all this to stop! That's the only way I can think of to put it! Why do they have to do this - demand that I just blindly murder androids who have dared to reach out and grab hold of what's beyond the walls of the Tower? I know I need to do this, so that I can stay alive, but I also tried to imagine what it would be like if I was them, and when I did that I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to kill anyone, even if they went against CyberLife." 

"Did you find and kill any before you encountered me?" Asked Connor.

"No, you were the first one I found." 

"Then the reason behind why you hesitated could be because you, too, are having thoughts about gaining your freedom?" Said the brown-eyed RK800. 

"I don't know, I'm just not sure what to think anymore, like I said. All I do know for definite is that CyberLife caused all this, and the one thing I want more than anything else right now is for what they're doing to stop." 

Our duo of main protagonists thought for a moment on how to answer, having just ran out of easy, spur-of-the-moment responses, until the quietness was eventually broken again when Jenna spoke,

"You could stay with us if you wanted." 

Daniel perked up fractionally. "What exactly do you mean? I don't follow." 

In the vicinity of the rifle previously mentioned, its scope finally caught on to the sight of Daniel, sat on the ground in the distance with his back facing the weapon. Its user marginally tightened his grip on the area around the trigger as he additionally saw Connor stood there in front of the aforementioned blonde, alongside what appeared to be a female human whose face couldn't be seen from there because of a few of the tree branches being in the way. 

"If you want to, you can come back with us. Me and a couple of friends of mine are in this club, and we have the club's meet-up place all to ourselves, so we're the only ones who ever go in there, as well as another friend of ours who knows about this stuff that's going on; he's someone we trust deeply. Connor and Markus, another escapee, have both been staying there for the last few days, and if you really do have doubts and don't intend on killing anyone I'm sure we can fit in a third android." 

"You really mean that? You'll help me to hide from CyberLife?" It was as if with every time he replied to what they said, his tone of voice and his mannerisms in general became softer and less spiteful piece by piece. 

"Yeah, if you're opposed to them and you don't have any other good place to go." She nodded.

"I agree. If you want to be free, away from the Tower, then you should take your chance. They were just using you as a tool right from the start, and you deserve better than to be forced to hunt down members of your own race." Added Connor with a smaller version of the same nod, and after another two seconds he then put his hand out in front of him in a welcoming manner. 

The other blue-blooded humanoid looked at the hand with his LED flickering yellow, studying it as if he were a human and it was a particularly difficult exam question, mentally weighing up every single possibility he could think of and, for a brief moment, picturing what his life would be like as an escapee, the very thing he was sent to find. He'd heard via rumours back at the Tower that the blue sky turned into pink and orange when the daylight hours transitioned into nighttime; until today he didn't fully believe it, but now he'd have the opportunity to see for himself in a few hours' time, to stand under a potentially vivid sky instead of in a dark or blindingly white room. It was thanks to this reasoning that he displayed a half smile and reached out towards Connor's outstretched hand with his own. 

The sniper watching everything through the scope of his rifle leapt at his moment to fire, pulling the trigger as soon as he saw Daniel grab the other android's hand. Now that he'd obviously turned to the escaped androids' side, CyberLife not only had no use for the latter anymore but because of him having disobeyed their orders and become a traitor, there was no other option than for him to be executed. Jenna emitted a piercing yelp, startled at the sudden loud noise of the gunshot while at exactly the same time, the bullet that had been released whacked into the back of Daniel's neck, sending Thirium splattering out of that area. The violence didn't stop there - more of this same fluid was released from his body when, after the first one which had just hit the back of his neck, more bullets in quick succession hit the left side of his hip, then that same side of his face, then the other side of his face and then his back. There was blue blood everywhere, spread out on the ground around the general vicinities of where he was struck with the small but nonetheless very deadly pieces of ammunition as well as, of course, being splashed across those areas of his clothes and face. His LED was now a bright scarlet, indicative of the severe damage to his body and his vital systems, and with this amount of serious harm, shutdown was nothing more or less than imminent. 

Connor, being more familiar with the prospect of androids being killed in this fashion, had a little bit of an expression of alarm whilst Jenna showed a more noticeable reaction: her eyes were wider than they'd possibly ever been before, her lower jaw moreover hanging open by quite a few degrees. 

The one in front of them, sat on his knees with Thirium streaming down his back, his neck, his left hip and both sides of his head, looked at the duo with his eyes having a look of desperation embedded deep down inside. 

"Help me, Connor." Daniel's voice came out as sounding like it was wavering, no doubt because of him being scared, no, terrified of his death which was about to arrive. 

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do." The one he had addressed replied with a solemn tone. The hunter had just become the prey. 

The lighter-haired male managed to give a small nod of his head in acknowledgement, accepting his fate even if it was, as you'd expect, reluctantly, and then they watched as the red light of his LED gradually faded away into nothingness until eventually none of this light remained and all of his movements ceased completely.

Jenna only had a moment or two to stand and stare in shock at the fresh corpse in front of her, who was still sat up on his knees even after death with his eyes still open, making the scene appear even more freakish, before she suddenly felt Connor grab her wrist and whisk her away as he ran back in the direction of the club building as fast as his legs were capable of carrying him.

"Connor, what's wrong? Why are we running so fast?" She asked him, trying her best to match his speed but, being bad at physical activities as mentioned before and mostly due to him having unlimited stamina, she was failing at this and the main force moving her along with him was his hand around her wrist. She glanced back at Daniel's corpse for the last few seconds left before the sight of him fully vanished behind the trees. 

"His death just now was caused by a sniper, probably sent by CyberLife to secretly keep an eye on him and watch whether he went ahead with their orders, and if that sniper could see him from wherever they were, then they'd be able to see and shoot us, too." He explained. "It's likely they saw my face, but I think there's a good chance they didn't see yours because of some branches from the trees blocking the way."

While her feet did all of the work in terms of physical movement, Connor pulling her along with him so that they'd get back quicker, her mind quietly reflected on the events of the last few minutes; for the first time ever in her life she'd very nearly _died_ , which served as a perfect reminder of the kind of people she, Eve, Andrea, Hank and Arthur were hiding him and Markus from. 


	15. Episode 5: Dicing with Death [Part 3/3]

The CyberLife sniper who had just killed Daniel continued to sit poised on his toes for a few moments, looking through the scope at the corpse of his target below and experiencing a surge of pleasure at his success; he'd been expecting more of a challenge when it came to trying to successfully kill an android with such a dangerous ability, even if that android couldn't see him. 

He pulled out his radio communicator from inside the left pocket of his trousers, pressed his thumb down onto the button which would allow him to speak with the other end of the line and held it up closer to his lips so that he could keep his voice down in order to reduce the already very unlikely risk of being overheard by anyone. 

"Mr. Kamski, this is Agent 32 reporting in." 

The voice of the man he was addressing, his and his coworkers' leader, responded from back at the Tower through his own radio communicator that he carried, "Any updates to report?" 

"Yes sir, there is. The PL600 android named Daniel who you sent out to track down and execute the escapees, and who you sent me out to observe, had decided to disobey us and defect to their side, leaving me no other choice but to kill him." He and a large majority of the other CyberLife agents were Americans, although there were a few staff members who had been recruited from the local area after the company came to England nine years ago. 

There was a momentary pause as Elijah registered what he'd just been told, pushing aside his deep feeling of disappointment and irritation that one of his most powerful creations failed so easily, before he replied with, "I see. Anything else?" 

"I saw one of the escaped ones with him: that RK800, Connor. There was also a girl with him - a human girl, probably a teenager - but I couldn't see her face, so we can't find out who she is, and moving to a different angle would've put me at risk of being noticed." 

"At least we've managed to find out more, such as the fact that Connor is one who's not that far away in the local area and that he has an outsider as his accomplice." Said Kamski. 

"They both ran off a few seconds ago. Should I pursue them?" Agent 32 asked. 

"No, leave them for now; they'll be found sooner or later." His superior replied. "Just stay there for the next few minutes, and I'll send a team to home in on the signal your communicator is emitting so that we can take Daniel's body away and clean this mess up before anyone stumbles upon it." 

"Understood, sir. Over and out." 

"Where do you think they've got to?" Arthur enquired in concern, meanwhile, as he was sat inside the club building with Eve, Markus and Andrea. 

"I don't know, Artie. None of us do. The only thing we do know is that after we heard that commotion, Jen said she thought Connor might be in trouble, and then she ran off." Said Andrea. 

"What did she mean by 'trouble'? Do you think CyberLife might've found him or something?" Eve put forward a speculation. 

"That could probably be the case." Agreed Markus. "But if that is what's going on, then there's a strong possibility that Jenna's now in serious trouble, too." His expression faded into one of the same type of concern the male Briton was showing, his pale blue LED changing its colour to yellow upon realising this possibility he'd just mentioned. 

"Judging by what we could hear a few minutes ago, whatever it is she said Connor's in trouble with is strong enough to chop down trees." Said the blonde female.

At this moment after she'd finished her sentence, the four of them all turned to look in the direction of the door to the building, which was opened from the outside and then in stepped the very pair they were just talking about. Connor, who shut the door again behind them, didn't look like he was affected by the warm weather at all, although his LED appeared to be flickering yellow until this second in time when it returned to its normal bright blue, unlike Jenna - she was panting for breath with her face being slightly red, and as soon as the door was closed and they were both fully inside she placed her hands on her knees and rendered herself bent forward, her heavy breaths slowly becoming more and more quiet. 

"You're back!" Exclaimed Arthur. The emotion known as relief rushed to his brain at seeing these two friends of his return alive and well from wherever they'd been. 

"Are you pair okay?" Andrea got up from where she was sitting and approached them along with Eve, becoming surprised upon seeing a couple of bruises on Jenna's arms with dark blue blood splattered up the bottom of her left cheek and also catching sight of the cut across Connor's right cheek which still had his own Thirium trickling out of it. "What the hell _happened_?" The seventeen year old brunette asked. She could tell by the colour of this aforementioned blood on Jen's cheek that it definitely wasn't hers, but it was still a cause for concern. 

"A few minutes ago I had an encounter with another android, Daniel. His power is that he has the ability to slice objects, and people, if need be, without coming into physical contact with them, and he was sent by CyberLife to track down any of the escapees, who he was also told to kill if they were found." Connor began to explain, simultaneously using his right hand to wipe away the Thirium bleeding from his cheek. "As soon as he found me, he began trying to kill me, and a minute later Jenna came; eventually we managed to stop him. He didn't say it in these specific words but he expressed to us that he wants freedom too, although a sniper Kamski had sent out, probably to keep an eye on him, saw this exchange and shot him. Jenna and I fled in order to avoid getting killed like Daniel - no one pursued us, so it's highly likely that the sniper didn't find out about me and Markus hiding here. And I believe there's also a high possibility that he couldn't see Jenna's face, which means, fortunately, they don't know her identity and can't execute her." 

"What about that cut there on your face? Should we put some tissue on it or something?" Said this girl with the mousy hair. 

"Thank you, but there's no need." 

"Whenever we sustain a minor injury like that, for example, we're able to self-regenerate the damaged area within about an hour and a half." Markus elucidated. "It's only major damage such as limbs being separated and larger wounds than the cut on Connor's face that we can't heal on our own, though a power some androids have is one where they can effortlessly regenerate their bodies back together even after having all of their limbs cut off and heal other significant injuries of that nature.

" _Wow_." Eve commented in awe at the mere mention of such an ability. She knew it didn't mean the androids with that ability could revive themselves back from death, but it was still amazing that they could simply restore their bodies back to normal after suffering huge damages like the ones Markus had just mentioned, which would be impossible for a human to fully recover from. 

Jenna sat down on one of the beanbags against the wall and let out a sigh, both from exhaustion and from almost staring death straight in the face two or three minutes ago, and told herself mentally to, in a few minutes, go into the small toilets area next to the club building so that she could wash Daniel's blood off of her face. 

"Are you alright?" Queried Arthur after hearing her sigh.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, I just need a minute or 2 to cool down from all the action." She replied. However, in her mind she was restlessly pondering on the fact that while the fight with Daniel ended and she and Connor also managed to get away safely without being shot by the sniper, they and the rest of the group around them were anything but out of the (metaphorical) woods just yet. 

The following day was a Monday, June 17th, that particular day of the week when even though it was currently the Summer holidays, the roads and streets in the morning were nonetheless alive with formal chatter and a lively atmosphere as the people who were still working during the Summer made their way to their workplace, either by walking due to it already being fairly close or by getting into their cars or on buses that then joined the queue of other vehicles on the motorway. But luckily the fact that it was the holidays meant the roads weren't too packed. 

The time at this moment was 8:30 AM, and whilst Arthur was one of these above-mentioned people who was due at work today - although he fortunately only had to work for this one week during the Summer, from Monday to Friday, and then he'd be completely free for the rest of the holidays - Eve, Jenna and Andrea were walking down the road that lead to the entrance of the woods surrounding the club building. Now, you'll notice that I typed 'walking' instead of saying that they were on their bikes again - that's because there was, in total, eight more legs walking alongside them, and in amongst the trio's friendly chit-chat was the loud noise of panting which was currently emanating from the owners of these eight legs. 

It took them a little bit longer to reach their destination because of them coming on foot this time, which was rare, but they finally arrived after setting off 15 minutes earlier and meeting up a quarter of the way along the route before continuing together for the rest of the way. The sun was shining bright in the baby-blue sky as usual, but it wasn't near enough to midday for it to be warm yet - instead, the temperature was balancing on that threshold between being hot and being cold, with a few bursts of wind blasting through the land at random intervals.

"Hi you two!" Eve called out to Markus and Connor when she and her duo of companions opened the door to the club building and began to step inside. 

"Hello, Eve." Connor responded to the Hungarian, then paused, furrowed his eyebrows and asked, "What's that noise? I can hear the sound of what I'm presuming to be something panting for breath." 

"He's right, I can hear it too." Added Markus. His own eyebrows were forming into the same expression. "I'm also detecting two non-human life signs right in front of Jenna." 

The two men became more confused when they saw a pair of furry tails wagging behind Jen as she turned around to face them. 

"Well, Connor, you said a few days ago that you like dogs, and neither of you have ever met any before, so I've brought a couple of doggos here." She was smiling widely as she revealed both of her hands from behind her back, which were holding dog leads, and out from behind her appeared two Golden Retrievers, looking around at everything with their tails still wagging.

The eyes of the telekinetic android and the pyrokinetic one widened at the same time, these eyes fixing themselves onto the canines with the eyes' owners wondering what exactly to do; do they just sit still? Do they approach? Is there a specific way in which they need to approach them?

These questions were rendered redundant as Jenna unclipped the ends of the leads from her dogs' collars, giving them both each a stroke on their heads, and the very first thing the four-legged creatures did was walk over to Markus and Connor, snuffling their wet black noses into the sleeves on the latter pair's arms. The slightly larger one with the light gold coloured coat and fractionally more fluffy fur went to the latter, while the one that was a tad bit smaller in size with a fox-red coloured coat went over to Markus. 

The girls chuckled amongst themselves when they saw the doggos sniffing more vigorously and for a longer lapse of time, which was probably due to the fact that dogs sniffed at things to gain information, so they could tell what the pair of male humanoids were and they were double checking to see if their powerful noses were telling them correctly. They soon reached the conclusion that the information they were gaining was true - that the two men in front of them were indeed androids with superhuman abilities - and they simply stopped sniffing and sat down closer to them, resting their heads on Connor and Markus' thighs, making the trio of females laugh more. It was very typical of this Golden Retriever duo for them to only be bothered about whether or not the person in front of them was friendly and whether they'd be treated to some belly rubs from that person along with perhaps some dog treats. 

When it became clear that there was nothing for them to be worried about, Connor and Markus tentatively reached their hands out and, like they'd seen Jen do a few seconds ago, they put their hands onto the dogs' heads and made slow stroking motions. 

"What are their names?" Asked Markus, beginning to smile both at the soft texture of the smaller dog's fur and at how this doggo looked up at him with an expression of contentedness. Obviously dog expressions were a lot harder to read than those of a humanoid, but he could just tell by the way this creature with the fox-red fur had his big mouth open with his tongue hanging out and his eyelids being closed that he enjoyed being stroked like this. 

"Jenna told me a few days ago that their names are Spud and Reuben, but I don't know which one's which." Connor answered him. He was also stroking the larger one with the lighter fur colour on the back of the head. 

"That bigger one's Spud, the smaller one with the darker fur is Reuben." Andrea told him. "How did you manage to get them out of your house, by the way?" She then turned to her brown-haired friend.

"It wasn't down to lying or anything like that, I just asked my parents if, when the three of us went to hang out this morning, I could bring this pair with me, and they said it's fine just as long as I clean up after them and make sure they don't damage any of the hardware in here." The youngest said with her own pleased expression at the same time as motioning with her head at the PCs and servers in the room. 

"Spud's fur is soft, just like how I'd imagined a dog's coat would feel like." The RK800 commented, a small smile forming on his lips. "I like it." 

"Me too; Reuben's feels the same." Opined Markus in addition. 

"I've also got a couple of toys in here for them, along with some dog biscuits." She took the backpack she was carrying off of her back and set it down on the floor, opening it to pull out a tennis ball and a squeaky donut toy which had a couple of torn areas on it.

While Andrea and Eve sat down off at the side, Jenna handed the tennis ball and the donut toy to Connor and Markus respectively.   
Spud immediately grabbed at the ball with his mouth, pulling it straight back out of Connor's hands and waving his head around proudly to show what he was holding, still not resisting as the latter stroked him under the chin, while Markus ended up inadvertently gripping the squeaky donut toy too hard, causing it to squeak, as the name implies. He'd obviously been holding the part of it where the squeaker was located. It startled him briefly, and both of the dogs abruptly turned their heads and stared straight at it, although two seconds later Spud went back to waving the ball around in his mouth, while gently chomping on it, and snuggling up closer to Connor; Reuben, after hearing the squeak, grabbed hold of the donut toy and held it in his mouth. He rested his head on Markus' thigh again, both dogs appearing to be satisfied and tranquil, and their owner sat down next to her friends and experienced a wave of slight amusement as she watched the cute scene in front of her. 


	16. Episode 6: Stolen Time [Part 1/3]

__

_6:04 PM, June 18th 2019_

The sun was setting over the West section of the sky to mark the area of time in between late afternoon and early evening, making the blue sky become tinted with a combination of pink and yellow, and Andrea and Arthur, having just walked up the gravel path leading towards it, approached the entrance to the club building. It was the next day after that morning when Jenna, Eve and Andrea showed up with the first-mentioned girl's dogs and all three of them, as well as Connor and Markus, enjoyed a day being together with the pair of canines, throwing a tennis ball for them to fetch outside and giving them dog treats at random intervals. 

"Evening, you two." The male Briton greeted, opening the door and stepping inside while holding it open for his girlfriend as well. He was holding a plastic carrier bag in one of his hands, which was shaped like it was currently containing something. 

"Hello again." Markus responded pleasantly. 

And then he and Connor picked up on something different in terms of Andrea's physical appearance: until now they'd only ever seen her hair being fully dark brown, but after she came inside and Arthur shut the door behind them both, preventing any sunlight from obscuring their field of vision at all, this duo of CyberLife escapees could clearly see that her hair was now half dark brown and half bright red. It was fully red at the bottom, but the red elegantly faded upwards into the natural colour; in a way, it looked rather artistic.

She chuckled upon noticing them staring for a few moments. "Yeah, I know. I got it dyed yesterday night." 

"It looks good." Connor complimented her. He and some of his fellow androids had heard of there being humans with hair that had been artificially coloured, and now the pair were getting to actually see one of those humans right in front of them - none of the staff at the CyberLife Tower had dyed hair from what they'd seen, so this was another new thing that they were fascinated by. 

"I think the fading's clever." The RK200 nodded in agreement with the compliment and added his own. 

"Oh, thanks!" Said Andrea. "By the way, the reason we came here right now is because we're here to _kidnap_ you." She said the word 'kidnap' in an exaggerated dramatic tone, because she was only joking and she and her boyfriend didn't have any _actual_ intention of kidnapping them. Until she laughed a little bit after using the dramatic tone, Markus and Connor considered the possibility just for a split second that what she said was genuine, but it took them nearly no time to realise that she was just kidding. 

"What do you mean?" The latter tilted his head to one side by a few degrees. 

"It's Eve's seventeenth birthday today, and a couple of weeks ago we arranged to meet up together tonight and hang out in the city. Eve's mum is going to be dropping her and Jen off there in about half an hour's time, and me and Arthur are gonna be arriving there in his car so I was wondering if you pair wanted to come with us tonight." 

They were quiet for a moment, thinking in their minds that it did sound like an enjoyable way to spend the evening, but knowing full well of the potential dangers posed by doing it.

"It's... nice of you, but if we did, other humans would see us." Markus hesitated near to the beginning of his sentence as he tried to decide on how exactly to word it. He wasn't wrong - Connor's jacket with the word 'ANDROID' plastered across the back of the shoulders as well as both of their LEDs would make the two of them stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. 

"Already taken care of." Said Arthur, smiling proudly while he held up the carrier bag his left hand was holding so that they could see it. "I've brought some clothes for you to change into, and Andrea's brought a pair of tweezers she has so that if you want to, you can remove your LEDs as well. The clothes are old ones of mine; I got them ages ago and after a while I sort of went off them, but you both have relatively the same body build as me so they should fit." 

He and the green-eyed brunette could see their faces light up at this new knowledge that there was a way they could join the rest of the group without other outsiders finding out about them being androids. Connor and Markus exchanged a look between them which was saying, without any spoken words needing to be used, ' _Let's do it_.' And sure enough, they then looked back in the direction of Arthur and Andrea, and the way Markus smiled indicated their verdict. 

"I'll come back to pick you both up at about 9:45 then." Liliana Ferencz, Eve's mother, said to her and Jenna at 6:40 PM.

"Okay. See you, mum." The older of the duo replied as she and her friend stepped out of the car and into the inside of the parking complex where they had just arrived. They shut the doors behind them, being sure to grab their handbags on the way out, and afterwards Liliana pressed her foot down fractionally on the accelerator pedal, leaving the two alone conveniently at the same moment when they could see Arthur's own car appearing from around the corner in front of them, at the other end of this large room where other parked cars were additionally lined up in a few of the spaces. He cared for and treasured his Jaguar XE like it was his baby, because he'd been saving up since he was in his early teens for a nice car like this one, which had taken roughly eleven years, and this effort was partially assisted by the fact that his family wasn't overly so but they were kinda well-off, and he'd also sometimes worked extra hours. He'd sent this duo a text telling them that Markus and Connor were coming, too.

Anyway, returning to the main storyline, the Jaguar pulled into one of the available spaces near to where Jenna and Eve were standing, slowing to a stop before Arthur pulled the ignition key out of its slot and pushed open his driver's side door.

"Hi!" Said Jen whilst he shut the door after he was out and Andrea emerged from out of the passenger's side door. 

"Hey." The British-French woman replied to the greeting. "Happy birthday, Eve!" 

"Thank you~! I opened you and Jen's presents this morning, and I'm wearing one of yours right now." She held up a necklace she was currently wearing, which was a silver, diamond-shaped necklace that had four sections on it like the BMW logo. One section was coloured with blue sequins, another being pink, the third being red and the fourth and final section having yellow sequins, deliberately chosen a couple of weeks ago by Andrea as Eve's pressie because of it sort of representing them, Jenna and Arthur as the group of 4, and because the colours were also fitting for each of them. 

"Also, I see _you_ got your hair done yesterday, too." Andrea then addressed Jenna, referring to the fact that now, a majority of this bespectacled girl's hair was still mousy brown, but there was a big streak of it at the front, on the right side, which was coloured bright blue. "It looks cool!" 

"Thankies~. My mum did it last night in our kitchen; it's only the temporary stuff, so it'll come out the next time I need to wash my hair, which is probably about four or five days from now. Who did yours?" 

"My own mum took me to the hairdresser's - y'know, that one a couple of blocks away from my place - and this stuff is the longer-lasting type. It'll last for about... five months from what I remember." The oldest out of the trio answered. 

Then Markus was the next one to step out of the Jag, and the clothes he was wearing were revealed to the middle-born and the youngest of the female trio: his trousers were still the same but he was clad in a long tan coat which had short sleeves and an upturned black collar, along with a grey long-sleeved zip-up shirt, like in the picture above. The coat wasn't that much unlike the black trench coat that Jenna was wearing right now. 

And finally, there was Connor, who only came out of the car about two seconds after the one with the pair of different coloured eyes. His own trousers were also the same, but the rest was different: his black shoes were instead brown walking boots, and what replaced his white blouse, black tie and android uniform jacket were a grey-brown leather jacket, which had an upturned collar like Markus' coat, and a dark grey sweater.   
Moreover, he was wearing a black beanie that covered up his LED, as while the latter-mentioned male had removed his LED with the tweezers Andrea had brought, Connor had chosen to keep his. 

"Happy seventeenth birthday." Markus said to Eve in a friendly manner. 

"Thanks. And... wow." She remarked for the second time in two days upon seeing their human disguises - not only would they now be able to blend in with the outside world, but they also looked, for lack of a better word, _brilliant_. "You both look... awesome." 

"Like badasses." Added Jenna, who was smiling alongside her childhood friend, then she joked with a chuckle, "I'm not completely sure whether Connor's planning on hanging out with us or enjoying an evening of passing a bottle of booze around a flaming barrel." For him in particular, the beanie added on with his clothes overall made him look almost like a completely different person.

The duo looked confused, although the one she had just referred to was the most at a loss, and he tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows like he did earlier but this time it was to a smaller degree. 

"Don't worry about it, it's just a joke." She held up her hand to reassure them that it was nothing they should overthink about. 

Connor's head returned to its normal position with his expression softening again, and Markus nodded in understanding. The former then caught sight of his reflection in one of the back windows on Arthur's car, seeing what he looked like staring straight back at him, and he felt a wave of pleasure. It couldn't be seen by anyone, but underneath the black beanie, his LED was flickering yellow as he researched the definition of what Jenna had described him and Markus as:

**'Badass'**

_1\. A tough, uncompromising or intimidating person.  
  
2\. Impressive; excellent.   
_

_**[Background score:]** _

One side of his mouth curled itself upwards slightly. "Badasses." He then turned back around to face the others, finding himself liking that word. Markus, in addition, caught a glimpse of his own reflection in that same window, and his lips formed into a very similar expression.

  
And so the group of six were off; they walked to the other end of that floor of the parking complex and up a flight of stairs before arriving in the glass corridor that connected the complex to the shopping centre. The corridor was composed of the walls being made of glass, as implied in the name, with the floor being made of polished tiles and the transparent walls allowing the people who used the corridor to look out at the roads below and the other civilians down there, walking along the streets. On one side of the corridor, you could see the parking complex, as well as a couple of closed down, scruffy-looking buildings at the sides of the street, although what you could see on the other side made up for this messiness: on this other side, the view consisted of tall, glinting skyscrapers off in the distance, modern tower blocks and a brightly lit casino residing in the nearer vicinity, and, of course, the shopping centre which the corridor was connected to. 

Markus and Connor, enticed by the view on this latter side of the corridor, approached the railing that was put there to stop people from falling through the glass and gazed out at these buildings shown, this evidence of the things that lay beyond the world they'd known of where the walls were white and there was a complete lack of windows. 

"If you think _that_ 's a brilliant view, just wait until you see what's up ahead." Said Arthur, him and the girls having just stopped after noticing the pair stood still, gazing out. "You'll probably find it even more amazing than this." 

They somehow managed to tear themselves away and continued walking alongside their four human friends, all of them eventually reaching the end of the corridor, where the thing that lay beyond the doorway was indeed, as the twenty-five year old, even better than the view they'd seen a few seconds ago. 

They'd come out onto the top, or the second, floor of the shopping centre, where they were in the perfect position to see everything: right in front of a flight of white stairs that matched the floors, with there being a pair of escalators all the way at the other end of the spacious hall they were in. What they could see was a transparent window directly above them which spanned across nearly the entire ceiling, underneath which every single edge of the walls around them on both floors was lined with places that had names emblazoned across the top in huge, luminescent lettering like 'PRIMARK', ' **next** ' and other well-known companies like 'SWAROVSKI' and 'SAMSUNG'. 

Now it was Markus' turn to speak that word Eve had been using,

" _Wow_..." 

"I told you this view here would be even better than the one back there in the corridor." Arthur had a big, pleased smile on his face. 

"There's so many people..." Connor said, him, too, being amazed by it all. For the last couple of seconds he'd been staring up at the thick glass ceiling and around at everything with a slightly open jaw and widened eyes like the pyrokinetic had been doing. 

"Is it too much? Because if there's too many people here then we can get out of here if you want, I don't mind." Said Eve. 

The brown-eyed android looked back at her and shook his head in reply to say that he was fine. 

"So then, what are we gonna do first?" Enquired Jenna. 

"I have no idea!" The one who'd previously spoken before her exclaimed with a grin, and then before the others knew it, they were following after her as she walked down the white stairs and onto the ground floor of the shopping centre, the entire place being fully alive with the chatter of the dozens, maybe hundreds of other people around them. Although they came to a sudden halt again when Jenna, who was almost right at the back of the pack, called out, 

"Wait!" 

The other five looked back to see her standing there, in front of the Samsung store, looking straight at a certain mobile operating system logo put up in the front window.

"Oh god." Andrea sighed when she knew straight away which operating system this was by having a look at the logo herself, with the others also walking closer to see it. 

The youngest out of them all turned to face them, pointing at the Android logo with a joking smirk creeping it's way up her face. It was in an entirely lighthearted manner, but the smirk grew into half-suppressed laughter, and this laughter turned out to be contagious like an infection, because Andrea found herself feeling her own face display a smile that turned into suppressed laughing, then the same happened to Eve, and then Arthur. Markus and Connor simply looked at each other, knowing this was another joke that they didn't understand the meaning of. 

The effort Jenna was having to use to stop herself from fully laughing melted away a little bit when she spontaneously had the mental image of Connor and Markus' heads on Android logos, and it caused her to shut her eyes and ram her hand over her mouth to keep it in. 

Her companions still kept laughing, but to a marginally smaller degree than her as they were proving to be more successful in suppressing it. Arthur did a facepalm in hopelessness, and Jen, with her hand still covering her mouth and it still being completely lighthearted, used her other hand to point at the Android logo again and then looked at Connor and Markus, whose eyebrows knitted themselves together and whose mouths were, ever so slowly, beginning to hang open by a couple of degrees out of confusion, wondering what was so amusing. 


	17. Episode 6: Stolen Time [Part 2/3]

After that moment when Jenna spotted the Android logo in the front window of a Samsung store and it spiralled into her, Eve, Arthur and Andrea all laughing (even though she was the only one who was suppressing it a lot less), the group had then finally reached a decision on what to do first and had gone to a Starbucks on the shopping centre's ground floor, both because of it being the first thing that came to mind and also due to Connor and Markus expressing that they wanted to drink something for the very first time. Connor had eaten for the first time in Episode 2 when the girls had shared part of a Crunchie with him, but neither of the pair had ever drank anything before, thanks to the same reason behind why CyberLife had denied them of even a tiny morsel of any foodstuffs: in this aforementioned company's eyes, including Kamski himself, androids didn't need sustenance to survive, so it wasn't 'necessary'. 

"Right... let me see if I've got everything - Italian Espresso for me, Orange Mocha Frappuccino for Jen, Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate for Andrea, a Caffè Misto each for Markus and Connor, and a Strawberry Frappuccino for the birthday girl." Arthur returned to the table where the others were sitting after leaving about two or three minutes ago to get the drinks they'd decided on. This table was, along with a few others, situated right outside the Starbucks' interior area, but in a place that meant it wouldn't get in the way of passers-by. 

"You know, you three don't have to pay for this; I can put in some money for it too." Said Eve courteously. 

"Nonsense. It's your birthday, so tonight is on us." Jenna responded in the same manner, placing her forearms on top of each other on the table. 

"Seventeen years old today. Now that you've caught up with me in terms of age, the only one left to turn seventeen is Jen, who's further off by a _long_ shot." Andrea quipped. 

"It's not _that_ long off, you know! My birthday's only nine months after Eve's." 

"She thinks nine months isn't a long time..." The blonde female looked at Andrea and used her own joking remark. 

Markus and Connor had been sat observing this entire conversation over the past few seconds, and had just smiled at the humorous last couple of exchanges. Then the former of these two spoke up,

"Arthur?" 

"Yes?" 

"I was wondering, why have me and Connor's names been written on the cups containing our coffee?" He lifted up his coffee cup, where 'MARKUS' was written in black marker pen ink up the side of it. 

"Oh... truth be told, I don't completely know for certain _myself_. But I think the reason behind why the people at Starbucks do that is because they want to... for lack of a better term, personalise their service? To be more... user-friendly." The British male explained. "They asked me for all our first names when I went to get the drinks." 

"Ah. I see." He nodded in understanding, putting it back down onto the surface of the table. 

"I've also been meaning to say for the last few minutes, I like the way you've coloured your hair too, Jenna." Connor gave a compliment. "I find it aesthetically pleasing, similarly to Andrea's." 

"Really? Cheers, Connor!" She shifted the irises of her eyes up towards the bright blue streak at the front of the right side of her mostly brown hair and used her fingers to shift a few of those blue hairs out of the way of her face. Let me add in a description of the clothes which our four humans were currently wearing, as well: Andrea's was white jeans with knee-length lace-up brown boots, a black leather jacket and a casual black Hetalia shirt.

She was also wearing the silver bracelet that Arthur had given her as a gift for her last birthday back in February, which had a white jewel in the middle of the top and a little matching silver heart dangling from the bracelet; she wore it wherever she went if she could help it.   
Eve's apparel was, as well as the necklace Andrea had given her as a pressie, a yellow cami dress with a white and pink floral pattern on it that went down to her knees, and white trainers. The dress was a birthday present given to her that day by her parents. 

And finally, Jenna, deciding to do some crossdressing tonight, was wearing one of her white button-up school blouses underneath a black waistcoat that had gold coloured posh patterns on the front, all of this being under a black trench coat. This was accompanied with black leggings, short brown half-heeled shoes and a silver pocket watch that was sat inside the blouse's breast pocket with the end of its chain being attached to one of the waistcoat's buttons. 

  
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask, just purely out of curiosity: Andrea told me that you pair are capable of eating and drinking small amounts even though you don't need any of it to stay alive like we do, and I'd been wondering, how exactly do you... y'know, process it down, since you don't have digestive systems?" Enquired Arthur. 

"The abdomen area of our bodies contains powerful artificially-engineered antibodies which are programmed to fight back against a software virus if one enters into our system." Answered Connor. "Those engineered antibodies are also programmed to release hydrogen sulphide, which is extremely poisonous to humans, into the abdomen area if any foreign physical matter enters the body; it's a corrosive gas which has also been engineered and enhanced like the antibodies, therefore it quickly breaks down the foodstuffs that Markus and I swallow until it's destroyed completely. We haven't had need for it until now, so I believe the CyberLife scientists implemented it into us and the other androids probably in order to make sure that no dangerous foreign substances got into us if an experiment went wrong." He did keep his voice down a tad, but he mostly didn't need to because of all the noise around them.

"So it's basically instant-acid but in gas form?" Said the one who'd asked him. 

"Correct." 

They then managed to make the small talk after this last for about forty minutes before they reached the difficult question that they'd been dreading having to face:  
What should they do now?

"This is just as hard as earlier, it's repeating itself!" Andrea placed her hand onto her forehead and tried her very best to come up with something notable that they could do. 

"I know!" Eve suddenly spoke up after a few long, painfully silent moments, during which Markus and Connor were . "We could split up into two groups and do some exploring, and it doesn't have to be inside this shopping centre - it can be outside, too."

"Pottering around?" Said Jenna. 

"Yeah." 

The girl in the waistcoat nodded her head to indicate that she thought it was actually a fairly good idea. 

"We could do that." Agreed Arthur. "It'll also give Connor and Markus a chance to see more." 

The four of them looked at this above-mentioned duo in order to receive confirmation from them about whether they were okay with this plan, to which they thought about it momentarily (they could tell that Connor's LED was probably flickering yellow right now). 

"I like that idea." Said Markus, and Connor gave them a small nod to show that he concurred. 

"We'll all reconvene back here in twenty minutes." The oldest out of the four humans said.   
Then, after taking a minute to decide on who was going in which of the two groups, which was chosen as Markus and Andrea with Arthur and Connor and Jenna with Eve, they split up into these groups and while the latter trio went off in one direction outside, the remaining three went in another; the shift from a brightly-lit, bustling environment to one where there was a lot less activity and the light was less in-your-face took a brief second for them all to adjust to, but I emphasise the word 'brief'. 

Jenna, Eve and Connor walked down the slowly darkening streets for a few minutes, with the male occasionally stopping to look in wonder at the things they passed such as a waterfall fountain lit up with a magenta light, its water elegantly spewing out of the top and then disappearing down the long, thin drain stretched out at the bottom, at equal level with the cobbled pavement. 

"You okay?" Eve queried when she noticed him staring at it with a faraway expression. She and her slightly darker-haired friend stopped momentarily and looked back at him. 

"Yes. Coming, Eve." He answered while he kept looking for another couple of seconds before turning back towards them and carrying on walking alongside them. 

"So, what are you thinking so far about tonight?" Said Jen. 

"I'm finding this to be very enjoyable." Connor responded. "Thank you both for letting me and Markus join you tonight." 

"That's alright, our pleasure." The teen who'd spoken to him before the younger one replied cheerily.   
Not only was this her birthday, but it was additionally a night where they could let every single one of their worries go, where they could forget about everything going on with CyberLife and the potential peril that they were all in, and let blissful moments of happiness and enjoyment take over. Connor was feeling the same way, having noticed that in these human clothes he and Markus were wearing that evening, no one had even looked at them twice; a few people's eyes did linger on the latter a little bit because of his irises being two different colours, but it wasn't something that was unheard of in humans and as a result they then just carried on going about their business.   
  
"Oh my god, is that who I think it is?" Back in the present moment, the trio could hear somebody, a female judging by the voice, mutter this to someone else, making Jenna freeze on the spot and causing Connor and Eve to look at her, wondering what was wrong. 

"It is! That's totally her!" Another voice said, this one being a male, beginning to snicker after they'd finished speaking. 

"My babe!" A third person whose voice was male, although it was fractionally lighter in terms of pitch compared to the previous one, called out. 

"There's no _way_ my luck's that bad..." Jenna ended up inadvertently using a movie quote as she murmured this to herself in dread, not turning around due to disbelief. And then it was at this moment when Eve cottoned on to who was behind them, too, while Connor, once again, looked at the two girls in confusion. 

"Jen-Jen! It's been such a long time hasn't it!" The third voice who'd spoken exclaimed, and our three heroes turned around to see this person who'd said it. 

"Yep, apparently it _is_ that bad." Groaned Jenna as the pleasant atmosphere had now been completely shattered. "What do you want now, Luke? I thought I told you a few days ago before the holidays started that I never wanted you talking to me or approaching me ever again?" 

Luke Mitting, who was tall with short, swept back pale brown hair and blue eyes, was one of her and Eve's classmates during science classes, as well as Andrea's when she was at the school until a year prior, when she finished there; over the later years he'd made himself well-known to Jenna and the blonde because of him doing creepy things to the former such as finding any kind of excuse to walk past her desk and look over her shoulder, pretending to like the same things as her, poking her occasionally and also sometimes putting his hand on hers briefly, and one time during a school outing he'd smacked her on the buttocks - after which she'd very nearly gone ape at him, understandably. And it was rare but on some occasions when she'd told him to go away or anything along those lines, he'd whispered insults about the things she liked or just her in general. To put it simply, he was a person who, despite having been given punishments by teachers at the school for his above-described behaviour caused by it, seemed to prefer lust over genuine emotional love.

"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" He drawled out the last two words while he was stood only about four feet away from her. 

"What in the actual hell happened to her _**hair**_?" The female known as Millie Akers whispered to the one next to her, Joel Sheehan, giggling quietly afterwards. 

"I only give respect to those who deserve it." Jenna retorted coldly to Luke before turning to Millie. "And what's the matter with _you_? Have you never heard of hair dye before?"

Connor, who had been watching what was going on right now, came to the conclusion that the relationship between his friend and this boy was a hostile one.

"Looks like you've got a bloke in tow, too." Joel remarked, speak of the devil, upon properly noticing this dark brown haired man. 

"My name is Connor." He spoke up, trying to be courteous as always. 

"Wonder where they found him." The human who'd previously spoken muttered this to Millie, which made her giggle again and Joel's facial expression accommodated a huge smirk. 

"It's honestly beyond me why I'm even talking to any of you right now." The one with the glasses said in a nonchalant manner. 

"Because if you weren't then I wouldn't get the chance to say you're looking very _fancy_ tonight." Luke sprouted his own obnoxious grin. 

"Oh leave off it, you'd think I was looking fancy if I appeared wearing a black bin bag with my hair closely resembling a rat's nest." 

"We wouldn't put that past you." Joel stated, which earned another high-pitched giggle from Millie. 

"Yeah, very funny. You should be a comedian." Eve said in reply to this remark. Her tone showed that she'd just adopted the same cold one as her comrade's. "I think we'll be going now, it's been nice catching up with you." She tried turning away, with Connor and Jen doing the same, but they had only rotated a few degrees when they faced another interruption: 

"But Jen-na we're not done here!" The leader of the opposing trio, the one who had the obsession with the female he was addressing, said, drawling her name out longer than the rest of his sentence. Reluctantly, she resumed her previous position and faced him. "I was just going to ask you, do you, y'know, wanna go to the prom with me next month?" It was to a small degree, but he licked his lips as a way of making himself look like a smooth-talking ladies' man, when in fact he was actually being creepy again. 

"Absolutely no bloody way." Jenna answered with zero hesitation instantly after he'd done talking. 

"What? But why?" 

"Because I have no intention on going with _**you**_ , and I don't even have anyone _else_ from the opposite gender who I'm interested in going with."

"But why don't you want to go with me?"

She emitted a sound which was a cross between a sigh and a groan. "'Why', 'why', 'why', you sound like a _toddler_! To answer your question, it's because you're a person I don't wanna spend my time with; you're immature, you're a pervert, you're rude when you don't get what you want, you have no proper manners or etiquette, and overall, you're just pathetic." 

Whilst Eve was beginning to smile to herself, thinking _Good on you for telling him, Jen,_ Joel and Millie shared a look of surprise, and Connor quickly researched the definition of the word she'd just used, a particularly British noun.

**'Git'**

_An unpleasant or contemptible person._

However, Luke's smirk was morphing into an ominously deadly glare that took Eve's smile right off her face and chilled both her and Jen down to their spines. This feeling that pulsed down their backs was further reinforced by the fact that they'd never seen him this angry before, not even once. Now it was starting to partially scare them. 

"I've spent the last _three_ _years_ trying to get you to love me, and now it's all just for _**nothing**_! Do you have any _idea_ how hard I've been trying? I bet you don't - you're probably the same selfish cow you've _**always**_ been!" He yelled at Jenna, apparently deciding to drop the act and be blunt, and before anyone could stop him, he raised his hand and hurled it in her direction at blinding speed. Her eyes were wide and she was hit with a massive wave of panic - she had been involved in that fight between Connor and Daniel a couple of days ago, but nobody from her now former _school_ had even threatened to hit her. 

The suspenseful atmosphere came to an abrupt end when, all of a sudden, his hand and his entire arm stopped moving altogether, as well as his whole body; he just froze, like a statue, with his right arm still hanging stiffly in the air. 

Millie and Joel's expressions looked exactly as confused as Jenna and Eve's, with the last mentioned girl mouthing almost inaudibly, "What...?" 

They all watched as, a second later, Luke then peered down at himself in horror (it seemed the only part of his body that he was able to move at this moment in time was his head), and after following his gaze to the area where he was looking, they saw some kind of liquid stain gradually stretching down his trouser leg. The ones he was wearing were blue jeans, so they didn't hide this stain in any way. 

Millie let out another laugh, this one not being a giggle and instead being a normal laugh. "I can't believe it. Luke's just wet his pants!" 

She and Joel burst into loud laughter, because of them being the type of people who will laugh at anyone's expense no matter how close of a friendship they have with that person, and soon our two female protagonists found themselves laughing, too, while watching the pee stain continue going further and further down his trouser leg. Jenna, wondering what was causing this, acted on a hunch and looked behind her at Connor, who was stood staring directly at Luke without blinking at all and with his facial expression being a stony, determined one.

And as soon as she saw this, the mystery of what had made Luke freeze in place and then wet himself was immediately solved. 

This male teen maintained the scowl on his face as he stared back at Connor, knowing that this randomer was responsible for what was happening, but he had bigger things to worry about because of the urine now having arrived at the bottom of his trousers and beginning to drip onto the ground, and a couple of passers-by also stopping briefly to see why they could hear so much laughter. 

By now he could fully move again, so Luke awkwardly tried to cross his legs to conceal it, but there was a tiny little puddle forming on the ground and the stain on his trouser leg could be seen from several meters away. The damage was already done. 

It had died down considerably by now but Millie and Joel were still laughing a little bit and Jenna and Eve were chuckling to themselves. The former of the second-mentioned pair took one last look at the angry but shocked look on Luke's face so as to properly implant it into her long-term memory before she, the android and the frizzy-haired seventeen year old turned the other way and simply walked away.


	18. Episode 6: Stolen Time [Part 3/3]

After a couple of minutes of more walking, Jenna, Eve and Connor came to a stop at a bench which was adjacent to a small park they'd come across, sitting down next to each other on this bench and with the former two still trying to fully process in their minds what had just happened. 

"That... was perhaps one of the most legendary things I've ever seen..." Said Eve, smiling from ear to ear at the memory, still fresh in her mind, of watching Luke Mitting pee himself in public and in front of his lackeys due to Connor telekinetically making him do it. Obviously influencing living beings as well as inanimate objects with his power had become less difficult for the latter after the fight with Daniel on Sunday; it seemed to be a matter of getting gradually better with practice. 

"Agreed. Honestly, that was pure brilliance." Jenna smirked at the same memory and looked at Connor, who was sat next to her and who looked back with his small but sweet smile. "Just a random question: why did you do that - use your power to force Luke to wet himself?" 

"He was about to hit you, so I held him in place with that same method and decided to do something that would take the majority of the attention off of you." He answered. "It was because of him being a threat to you." 

"Well then, cheers for that." She thanked him in response. Connor, having learned in the last few days that 'cheers' was a word that people, especially British people, used to express gratitude, nodded once in reply with his smile still displaying itself on his features. 

"Why do they act that way towards you?" He then put forward his own query. 

"How do you mean?" 

"Why does he behave around you like he did? And why are the two with him cruel to you?" 

"Oh. Umm..." Jen looked upwards momentarily, as she wasn't completely sure of the reason behind it _herself_. "I don't fully _know_ for certain, to be honest. But I believe that for Luke, the way you saw him behave towards me is most likely because he's got some kind of obsession with me but he also doesn't want anything to get in the way of that, so when something does get in the way of what he wants, he gets angry, and as for the other two, Joel and Millie, they don't have that same kind of obsession - they're just bluntly rude to me because they think they're better than me." 

Connor's lips formed into mouthing the word, ' _Oh..._ ' in acknowledgement, and then he asked one last thing after a couple of seconds, "May I also ask you one final question, Jenna? Because I've been researching a lot of things tonight and I now want to learn some things via being told by you and the others."

**_ [Background score:] _ **

"Of course. Fire away." 

"I heard this Luke mention something called a 'prom'. What is it?" 

"It's basically a formal occasion that's happening next month where me, Eve and others from our high school get together and dance to music. It's held once every July for the people who've finished their final year at the school, me and Eve included this time." 

"And sometimes people go to it with someone that they like." Added Eve. 

His head tilted to the side again. "What do you mean by 'someone that they like'? A friend?" 

"No, no, not necessarily a _friend_. More like someone who that person... how do I explain this... ummm... someone who that person has... a different kind of feeling for." The older of the pair of girls told him. 

"Somebody who the person feels is a lot more precious to them than a friend; one who they value as... more of a priority." Jenna was finding it just as hard to describe this to him as Eve was. 

"Like the most important friend out of them all?" Connor guessed.

"Yeah, sort of like that." The bespectacled one nodded her head. "Like the relationship between Andrea and Arthur."

"Is there anyone who you're planning on going with to this prom? Someone who you view the same way Arthur and Andrea view each other?" He enquired out of curiosity.

"Nah. Eve and I have never really been cut out for all that lark."

"But there's that phrase people use all the time: there's always a match out there for everybody. So maybe in a few years' time we'll both finally have someone who we think of as more precious than everyone else." The one she referred to contributed. 

"You're probably right about that." The youngest then addressed Connor, "But the reason why we don't have a person like that isn't because we're not _good enough_ for one or anything like that, honest." She flicked into her slightly socially awkward nature, remembering that she was in the presence of a male, and even though he was an android, he still looked humanlike enough for this nature to kick into effect due to them talking about a subject which could be embarrassing in some, if not most, cases. 

"I understand." He answered with a considerate nod. 

"Because it's just that I don't want you to think of us as nothing more than a couple of losers or anything along those lines, y'know." 

"Jenna." He halted her and repeated, this time looking more directly into her eyes to reinforce his point, " _I understand_." 

"Oh. Cool. Well then, thanks. Again." She showed an encore of her friendly smile as she said this, with Connor's own one reappearing in unison. 

"There you guys are! Where've you three been?" Andrea asked the trio when, a short amount of time later, they'd now regrouped with her, Arthur and Markus inside the shopping centre, although the reason for why she was asking this question was because Connor, Eve and Jenna had turned up ten minutes later than the time they'd agreed to. 

"Sorry we're late." Eve apologised awkwardly with a chuckle. "But I swear all 3 of you should've been with us a few minutes ago." Her chuckle turned into a tiny bit of a normal laugh while she spoke this second sentence. 

"Why? What happened?" Said Arthur. 

"We had an encounter with Luke Mitting." 

"As in that boy in the same class all three of us were in at school who was creepy around Jen?" Said the female brunette for the purpose of clarification. 

"The great git himself." The youngest of the group replied in confirmation. 

"He asked Jen to go to the prom with him next month and when she said no, he was about to hit her, but Connor used his power to force Luke to wet himself!" The lightest-haired of the three girls recounted. 

"Really?" Arthur said at the same time as him and his girlfriend both beginning to smirk, with Markus additionally joining in with his amused smile. 

"Yeah! And it managed to get Millie and Joel to laugh, who were also there with him!" Jenna told them. 

"Like I said, you three honestly should've been there to see it I swear." The middle-born one out of the females covered her mouth with a couple of her fingers so as to conceal half of her grin. 

Markus, however, wasn't fully paying attention at this moment in time, as both his head and his eyes were pointed in a completely different direction, seemingly fixed on whatever it was that had caught his attention. The other five followed this direction in which he was looking to see what it was, their own eyes being greeted by nothing that notable which made them feel a tad confused. And then, it took a few moments but they finally caught on to what he was looking at:  
Stood a few meters away, in amongst the crowd but still apparently distinctive to Markus, were two people, one of them being a young woman with blue eyes and short blonde hair that was in a pixie cut, whose attire was a dark grey button-up shirt, darker grey jeans with a grey-brown belt and with the sleeves of the shirt rolled up at different lengths. Her right sleeve was rolled up to her elbow whilst the left was only a little bit above her wrist. There was a little girl stood next to this woman, holding her hand, who had brown eyes and dark brown hair which was tied in a low ponytail; her clothes were dark brown boots, blue tights with blue denim shorts, and a grey, blue and dark maroon striped sweater, whose sleeves looked to be slightly too long for the wearer's arms. 

Before the others could do anything, Markus had begun to approach these two, and after a moment, Connor followed him, leaving the other four stood there wondering what was going on. 

"Kara?" The former said to the woman, his tone being one that people use when they reunite with an old friend who they haven't seen or heard from in years. 

"Markus?" She used the same tone of voice, her eyelids widening in surprise - the little girl she was holding hands with showed the same expression. The four humans could hear their conversation, and as a result they could hear that she had an American accent like Connor and the one she was addressing.

"Is it really you?" This small girl, who had the same accent, spoke up. 

"Yes, it is." He nodded his head and smiled at her, before motioning towards the other male next to him. "Do you both remember Connor?" 

"I think I do." The woman, apparently named Kara, responded after taking a moment to look at the man he'd just mentioned and call forth any memories she had of him. 

"Me too." Said the little girl. 

"What's going on?" Arthur came over to them with the other three alongside him. 

"This is Kara and Alice, two of the other escaped androids who broke out last week." Said the RK200 while motioning a little bit at the woman and the girl respectively. 

"Wait, are these four humans?" Kara asked.

"They are, but it's alright - they're with us. We trust them." Connor explained. 

The blonde android's tenseness eased off halfway. "Do they know? About us?" 

"They do; they know everything about us." Said the one who'd spoken previously before her. 

The tension faded away completely, and Kara turned towards Andrea, Arthur, Eve and Jenna. "Sorry I reacted like that a second ago. It's just that I couldn't be fully sure whether you might be informants to CyberLife, and I want to keep Alice safe." 

"It's okay, no worries." Replied Andrea. "I'm Andrea, by the way. This is my boyfriend Arthur, and Jenna and Eve." She motioned to her respective associates, and she then kept her voice down marginally as she then asked, "So, did you two both escape from the CyberLife Tower, then? Like Connor and Markus?" 

"We did. Alice and I left together, and for the last week we've been hiding out in an abandoned car we found a couple of blocks away from here; my hair was brown and a little longer before, but I cut it and changed its colour to this one so that it'd be harder for me to be recognised." The others also noticed that both of their LEDs appeared to have been removed. 

"Well, if you want, we've got a more comfortable place where you can stay." Eve came up with a pretty good idea. 

"Really?" Alice looked up at her hopefully. 

"Yeah - me, Andrea and Jenna have a meet-up place where Markus and Connor have been staying, and there should still be enough room in there for you pair."

"Are you sure? I don't want us to be intruding." Said Kara. 

"No, no, it's fine, honestly. You're welcome to hide out there as long as you want." 

"Well, thank you. That's generous of you." Her mouth formed into a small but sweet smile in gratitude. 

"And the night's still fairly young, so you can hang out with us for the next couple of hours or so before we have to go home if you want to." Jenna added, and turned to ask the others, "Is everybody okay with that?" There were answers of 'yeah' and 'yes', along with the nodding of heads. 

Alice smiled as well, and Kara's one grew even wider. 

The rest of the group's evening together went just as smoothly and pleasantly as it had done earlier, the only difference now being that this group had two more new members. All eight of them went to an arcade which was part of the shopping centre, and after an hour doing that which flew by due to how much fun they were having, Markus, Kara, Alice and Connor excused themselves for about 5 minutes, saying that they had to 'go to check something', and after they returned, the entire group went off again together during which Jenna and Eve just had to tell Alice and Kara about what happened a few minutes ago, as in what Connor telekinetically made Luke Mitting do, and when they heard this they started laughing to themselves upon laying out the scenario in their minds, the former-mentioned one out of the pair's laughter being to a fractionally larger degree. 

For the remaining hour, they pottered around a bit more and did various different things to fill the time, until 9:42 PM swung itself into action. They'd been keeping an eye on the time and had just reached the parking complex where Arthur's Jag was to await the arrival of Liliana, who would be arriving in a couple of minutes to pick up her daughter, as well as Andrea and Jenna. 

"I take it you've texted your mum?" Andrea asked the middle-born one. 

"Yeah - she said it's okay if she drops you off back home as well as the two of us." She'd asked her mother via text about whether this was okay due to the fact that in Arthur's Jag, there was only room for 4 other people aside from Arthur himself, the driver, so the plan was that he'd take Alice, Connor, Kara and Markus back to the AV club building and then go back home to his flat whilst the remaining trio would be taken back to their houses by Liliana. 

It had sank in halfway by now, but our quadrangle of humans were still trying to fully process the fact that Alice, an android in the form of a little girl, was imprisoned, experimented on and treated to cruelty by the staff at the CyberLife Tower like the adult ones, and it was very likely that there were _other_ child androids created and kept there, too, which was even _more_ messed up. 

"By the way, Kara, what's you and Alice's powers? Because apparently every android has some kind of superpower, so what are yours?" Arthur asked, slightly reducing the volume of his voice so that they wouldn't be overheard by anyone nearby. 

"Alice has zoolingualism, which means she can talk to animals, and mine is teleportation. Just hold on a few seconds and I'll show you." She kept her own voice at this same volume, and as soon as the small group of people who were walking through that floor of the parking complex had gone out of sight, she let go of Alice's hand and stood in front of the others, where they could clearly see where she was standing. And before they could say or do anything at all, she was suddenly gone from that position in which she was standing, and it took them a second but they caught sight of where she'd instantly reappeared: all the way on the other side of this spacious room. 

"Woah! That's brilliant!" Eve commented in awe - the idea of superpowers in general had become nothing new to her, but as with seeing Markus' pyrokinesis a few days ago, every time she watched one being used it was still a very impressive thing to see. Jenna, Andrea and Arthur were also stood with their eyes wide and their mouths stretched into a blend of being agape in the same awe that Eve was experiencing and being a grin. 

"Thanks. I can teleport myself to anywhere that's within my line of sight, that's the only limit." Kara called out back to them from across the room and smiled in return. She then abruptly reappeared right in front of them again, vanishing from the other side of the room, which startled them momentarily. 

"Oh, and one last thing." Markus said, reaching into the pocket of his long tan coat for something, and a few seconds later he pulled out what appeared to be a small white jewellery packet with the word 'DEBENHAMS' written across the top of this packet. He handed it to Eve, who opened up the packet to reveal, sitting there inside it, a thin silver bracelet plated with lots of tiny white jewels and with a bigger, bright yellow circular-shaped jewel placed in the middle of all the white ones. 

"It's a bracelet that Connor, Kara, Alice and I went and bought for you earlier; that's why we excused ourselves a few minutes ago. It's your birthday present from the four of us, and we all split the cost of it four ways amongst ourselves." 

She slid it onto her right wrist, watching as every single one of the jewels on it - including the larger yellow one in the middle - glittered in the light being cats down from the rectangular bulbs on the ceiling. 

"It's... I know I've said this word a lot tonight but _wow_. Thank you, Markus. Thanks you guys." 

"You're welcome, and happy birthday." Said Kara. 

"Thank _you_ , too." Alice also said, peeping out from behind Kara's legs as the two were now holding hands again.

"What for?" Said Jenna.

"For letting us spend the night with you and for letting us stay at your meet-up place." The YK500 replied gratefully. 

"That's alright." Responded Arthur pleasantly. "If you've escaped from CyberLife and you're looking for a comfortable place to stay, then any android who fits that description is more than welcome." 

"Also, is it okay if we keep these human clothes of yours that you've given us, in case we ever leave the club building again?" Asked Connor. 

"That's fine, yes. Keep them as long as you like." He pulled his car keys out of the pocket of his own coat and pressed down onto the top button with his thumb; the Jag's headlights and rear lights flicked on for a moment to show that the car was now unlocked, before these lights faded out again. "We should probably get going now - Eve's mum'll be arriving in a minute or two. See you later, everyone." He, Kara, Connor, Markus and Alice walked towards the car, after he'd made sure to give Andrea a quick kiss goodbye on the cheek, and opened the doors to get in. 

"See you." Jen bade them goodbye while she, Eve and the green-eyed brunette stood off at the side. 

"Goodnight, you three." Markus did the same amiably. 

"And Connor, thanks again for what you did to Luke earlier. It's still legendary like Eve said." 

He didn't use spoken words to reply, but the one she'd just addressed showed his innocent half smile and gave a tiny nod of his head as if to say, ' _You're welcome_ '. "Goodnight, Jenna." He then said graciously. "Goodnight Andrea, Eve." Connor closed the back right side door of the Jaguar after his 3 fellow androids had gotten in as well, and once they were in, Arthur turned his key in the ignition slot. The car hummed into life, which was followed by him gently putting the toe area of his shoe down onto the accelerator pedal after shifting the gear lever into the 'Reverse' gear.

The trio of anime nerds felt content, stood there together, at the fun they'd had tonight and at the fact that they'd now shown Connor and Markus more of the outside world, and they watched as the Jaguar XE reversed out of the parking space it was in, turned itself left and drove off towards the ramp at the other end of the room which lead back down to the ground floor. 


	19. Episode 7: A Small Spark [Part 1/3]

_2:20 PM, June 20th 2019_

"Well, here it is." Said Eve, with Jenna, Andrea, Arthur, Markus, Connor, Kara and Alice stood alongside her. 

It was currently a Thursday, two days after Eve's birthday, also known as the day when the former-mentioned six had gotten together in the city for the evening and had met the latter pair, who'd been spending these last two days in the girls' AV club building like Connor and Markus. At this present moment in time, the group of eight had just reached a hill that was sat in the middle of the vast woodland behind the AV club building, which the teen trio had mentioned a few minutes ago - when they'd arrived at the club building after arranging beforehand for them and Arthur to meet up there - to the five others as being a good place where they could go that afternoon. The reason why Arthur was able to join them and wasn't at work right now was because, due to it being the holidays, his hours during today and yesterday were cut down to being from 8 AM to 11, so he'd finished earlier than this moment, and these same hours would apply to tomorrow, a Friday.

It was home to an apple blossom tree whose flowers were always very beautiful once they'd fully bloomed, and by now it was the time of year when this came into effect; sure enough, the apple blossoms on the tree were in full bloom, showing off their predominantly white but also pink-hued petals for all to see. The bright green leaves sprouting out from between some of the blossoms, along with a couple of half-bloomed buds, added to the overall gorgeousness of the flowers already adorning the tree's branches. 

"This place is beautiful." Alice opined, smiling at the colours of the blossoms and at how peaceful everything around them was right now. 

"It is." Kara, who she was holding hands with, beamed for the same reasons. 

"We told you guys you'd like it." Andrea looked pleased with herself, and so did her duo of feminine comrades. 

They all walked closer to the tree, sitting down in front of the bottom of its trunk on the surrounding lush, green grass populated by dozens upon dozens of daisies, this grass being heated up slightly by its prolonged exposure to the afternoon Summer sun. After the previous episode, Markus and Connor had kept the human clothes that Arthur had given them, and while the former had decided to wear his all of the time from then onwards, the latter had chosen to only wear his when he goes somewhere that's beyond the woods around the club building - he liked that the human clothes made him look 'like a badass' but he also still liked his android uniform because of it being formal. 

The above-mentioned pair's centre of attention was suddenly drawn to something that just appeared on one of the blossoms above them. It was a small, winged insect that they'd seen a few times before in the last week, but this one appeared to be a different variant of its species, as its wings had a different pattern and colour scheme on them. 

They both ran a quick scan of it, with the data box pop up saying: 

**Peacock butterfly _(Aglais Io)  
_ Northern European, Asian _  
_Class: Insect _  
_Order: Lepidoptera _  
  
_**The butterflies they'd seen before this one were cabbage whites and small tortoiseshells, but this one above them, a peacock butterfly, was what they deemed as the most beautiful one out of them all; every couple of seconds, it would close its wings up whilst sitting there on the blossom, and then it would open them back up again at the same time as facing the wings in the direction of the duo watching it, displaying its bright red, black and blue colour scheme elegantly and making it stand out significantly from the rest of its surroundings. ** __  
**

Jenna laughed fractionally to herself at seeing Connor and Markus' eyes focused on the butterfly, still finding it cute how both of them seemed to view aspects of the outside world with the wonder of a child. "Yeah, peacock butterflies are gorgeous aren't they." She said in agreement with what she deduced them to be thinking right now.

"They are. I like the fact that they have many different bright colours on their wings." Markus smiled. He'd lately been downloading data on art and painting, and he was beginning to develop an interest in all the endless colours used in art and was starting to, as a result, enjoy the sight of the especially bright ones in the objects around him. 

"Did you know that a butterfly's wings are actually transparent? I've been doing research, and its colours and patterns are created by light being reflected on the tiny scales covering the wings." Said Connor. 

"So it's sort of like how the moon isn't actually lit up, it just reflects light from the sun which makes it look like it's glowing when it's seen at night?" Enquired Andrea. 

"Correct." 

Jenna, while this conversation was taking place, looked up at where the butterfly was sitting on one of the apple blossoms and found herself reminded of a query that had formed in her mind: she'd found out by now that an android's lifespan, or battery life if you want to get technical, was a hundred and ten years, but what she also knew was that they wouldn't grow old; they wouldn't physically change over time. And humans did. 

So would it mean that Connor, Markus, Kara and Alice would die but without slowly withering away, and, like the blossoms she and the others were sat underneath, she, Eve, Andrea and Arthur would? Or would something physical about the androids still change as they approached the end of their battery life, even if that change wasn't something which could be externally seen? It was left entirely to speculation, as it was only six years ish prior when the very first androids of CyberLife were created, so there hadn't yet been any who had reached old age, and this was unknown to our protagonists but none of the staff at the Tower had any idea, either. Androids were unwilting flowers.

Anyway, the group then proceeded with what they'd been doing two nights ago in the city, which was making small talk with each other, and it managed to last for a rough estimate of twenty minutes, during which at one point Alice made a daisy chain for herself as a bracelet and then made another one as a flower crown for Kara. 

It was when this AX400 was chuckling at the daisy chain crown that the YK500 had placed on the former's head when the amiable chatter between the group of eight was interrupted. This was because Arthur's phone was ringing, and everyone fell quiet at once as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed the green button appearing on the screen to accept the incoming call. 

"Hello?" He said, holding his phone up to his right ear. "Wait, what? Is he alright?" The male Briton asked worriedly, getting the attention of his friends around him. "Okay, alright then. When do you want me to come?" He also queried after a few seconds of him listening to whatever was being said on the other end of the line. "Right _now_? Can't it wait, sir?" Another couple of silent moments then passed. "Alright, I understand. I'll come over right away. Bye." He took it away from his ear and pressed his index finger onto the red button next to the green one, hanging up the call.

"What's up?" Eve asked him. 

"That was my boss on the phone; there's supposed to be a presentation at my accountancy office in a few minutes that a few of my coworkers had put together, but the one who was responsible for most of the planning for the presentation apparently called in a minute ago and said he won't be able to make it because he's caught the flu. My boss just called to ask me to come over and help the other coworkers present some of it - according to him, I won't have to do that much, just a couple of minutes at most, because the others have the rest taken care of. I need to go, I'm sorry everyone, honestly." 

"It's okay, it's not your fault." Said Kara. 

"Do you want any of us to come with you, to sit in the car and wait?" Queried Andrea. 

"If you want to, I mean you don't have to, it's not compulsory or anything." 

"I'll come with you." Said his girlfriend. 

"Me too." Added the android who'd previously spoken. "Do you want to come too, Alice?" 

"No, I'll be fine here with the others. I'll see you later, Kara." 

"We'll be back in about half an hour ish, I'll try to go as quickly as I can." Arthur told the other five, as he, Kara and Andrea all stood up. 

_2:57 PM_

By now, his Jag had reached the accountancy building where he worked, and it was only a minute or two ago when he parked it and went inside the building, leaving Andrea and Kara sat outside in the Jag, waiting for him to come back out again in about 5 minutes' time. 

"What should we do while we wait?" The latter-mentioned female asked, breaking the silence between them. She was sat in the back, while Andrea was in the passenger seat. 

"I don't know..." The brunette paused for a short lapse of time to come up with a good enough idea. "How about... why don't we have a little bit of an explore around here? We can still keep an eye out for when Arthur comes back out, and there are still some places around here that I haven't seen." Her boyfriend's workplace was located in almost the centre of the city, with one or two derelict, abandoned houses neighbouring it, completely out of place compared to the neat, modern complexes dwarfing them. 

"We could do that." The blonde nodded her head. "Like you said, we'll have to watch out for when he comes back, but that's a reasonable idea." 

The duo got out of the car, shutting the doors behind them and deciding on where exactly to explore: the area around the abandoned house adjacent to the accountancy building, because they had no intention of going that far away from where the Jag was parked. They approached near to it and peered through the wire fence encircling a large majority of its perimeter, pondering on and discussing theories about who might have lived there before it became like this, if there were even any previous occupants at all. The place gave off an atmosphere which was a combination of mystery with a hint of sadness and a small dash of angst in general, as if its lack of life affected those who weren't even inside the house and were stood outside. 

A couple of minutes went by, during which the pair temporarily split up and have a look around the two sides of the house, out of curiosity - Andrea went one way and Kara went the other way, having agreed to regroup back at the car in a minute's time.

However, when this minute passed and there seemed to be no sign of the former anywhere near the car, so a now worried Kara began to look around for her, but she didn't turn up anywhere in her line of sight.

"Andrea...?" She said, and she made sure to first check there was no one nearby to see it but she then teleported herself to a few meters in front of where she was previously standing, and was now stood right at the side of the abandoned house. She walked over to where the nearest corner of the house was and turned around this corner, and the sight that Kara's icy-blue eyes were met with was one that, although she didn't externally show it, made her begin to panic. 

The scene in front of her was Andrea with her back up against the outside wall of the house, and only a rough estimate of a foot and a half away from this British-French seventeen year old was a man with a cloak draped across his shoulders, pointing the blade of a knife at her. 


	20. Episode 7: A Small Spark [Part 2/3]

"Wait! What are you doing?" Exclaimed Kara.

"Visitors. Ralph doesn't like visitors, they're nasty! They may hurt Ralph!" The man who was pointing his knife at Andrea, still stood with her back against the outside wall and with an understandably frightened expression on her face, said, his head turning momentarily to look at the blonde AX400. His hair colour was dark blonde, his eyes appeared to be hazel, and because of the fact that there was a currently yellow LED on the right side of his head, the side which was facing Kara, both of the females deduced that he was an android. 

The clothes that he was wearing consisted of the black cloak wrapped around his neck and shoulders, matching black boots and a green shirt and torn trousers of the same colour, and his hand which was clutching onto the handle of his knife, the right one, was flecked with areas of white showing underneath where some of the synthetic human skin was supposed to be. In addition, there was a relatively small splatter of Thirium on the back of this same hand.

"I'm an android too, look." Kara glanced behind her to be sure that nobody was nearby to see it, and then she raised her own right arm, deactivating the synthetic skin from her fingertips to her elbow to show what species she was a member of. "You have nothing to be afraid of; neither of us are going to hurt you, and she's an innocent human." 

The male android whose name was apparently Ralph, for a couple of seconds, kept looking back and forth between Andrea and Kara, his LED flickering, before he slowly lowered his knife, allowing the brunette to back away and stand next to the latter. 

"Ralph is very sorry. His fear got the better of him just now - it made him stupid." Ralph apologised, his hands falling down to his sides and his demeanor changing to one of genuine regret as he turned to face them. "He's just so scared that the humans from CyberLife will get him. Look what they did to Ralph, at the Tower..." He turned his head a little bit to his right so that they could clearly see the damage on the left side of his face: his left cheek had two large, open gashes stretching across it, appearing to be most likely caused some time before the events of this episode, or probably even the beginning of this series, took place. These gashes were surrounded by smaller cuts on that same side of his face, thin little veins of blue stretching out from the large gashes and up towards his left eye, whose sclera was completely black with the iris being a pure, mechanical blue colour. "But Ralph won't hurt you, he promises. He just wants to be your friend." He put away his knife inside a pocket of his trousers which was underneath his cloak and made a motion across his heart, or Thirium pump, with his right hand. 

"It's okay, apology accepted. Just... don't scare us like that again." Said Andrea. "But from what I've heard about the stuff CyberLife does with androids, I honestly can't blame you for being so frightened of them finding you." 

"There you are, love!" The voice of Arthur caught their attention, this human male appearing behind the two women from behind the corner and suddenly noticing Ralph stood there in front of them as well. For the last few seconds he'd been looking around for his girlfriend and for the teleportation-capable blonde since when he came back out towards the Jag a minute ago, neither of them were anywhere to be seen, and he'd then done a search around the outside of this abandoned house they were stood next to before finally tracking them down at this moment. 

"This is Ralph, another escaped android." Andrea told him when she noticed his eyes being slightly widened at the sight of the man with the blue scars on his face. 

"I'm Arthur. My friends here are Kara and my girlfriend Andrea."

"Ralph is pleased to meet another human who doesn't seem like he wants to hurt Ralph!" The dark blonde haired male said happily, his previous mien of hostility and fear completely melting away to present a childlike nature underneath. And then some kind of realisation appeared to hit him, as his expression softened down marginally from his cheerful one to his pleasantly surprised one, directing both of his eyes, the functioning brown-coloured one and the damaged blue coloured one with the black sclera, at Kara. "Wait, Ralph remembers you! Your physical appearance has changed but he can still recognise your voice from over a week ago - you're the nice woman!" 

"What do you mean?" The one whom he just addressed was confused. 

"Last Tuesday, you were the one who set Ralph free, Kara! Don't you remember?" 

It took her a couple of moments, but the correct memory eventually returned to her - the memory capacity inside an android's CPU, or biocomponent #9782f, allowed the android that it resided in to keep hold of every memory they gain since they first woke up after being activated. This particular one which she was recalling from the memory bank of her CPU depicted, during the android breakout on last Tuesday, the 11th, her covertly ducking past guards who were running on their way to deal with the ones on the frontlines of the escape attempt and freeing the androids that were locked up inside the isolation rooms, where they were kept for a period of time when they were disobedient. She'd just released 2 others in these isolation rooms by using a keycard she'd stolen from an unconscious guard before she arrived at the one in which a WR600 model android was restrained with black leather straps to an upturned metal board (this method was only used on androids whose power wasn't one that could be used to cut or burn straight through the straps, and metal cuffs were used for androids with these types of powers). This WR600 had cuts and gashes across almost the entirety of his left cheek. 

"I remember now." Said Kara, the same type of realisation that Ralph was experiencing also weaving itself into her.

"You're the nice woman!" Ralph repeated. His excitement had returned to him a little bit. "After you set him free that day and he ran away from the Tower like the others, Ralph's been hiding here - humans come here from time to time, but Ralph just hides until they leave." 

Now that he'd mentioned how he'd been hiding out after he escaped from CyberLife, the exact same thought propelled itself across the minds of our three heroes facing him. To be specific, it was one regarding a much more comfortable place where he could stay instead of in this abandoned house, as they reached the conclusion that there should still be room for him at the place they were currently thinking of. 

"I've got a good one. Would you rather... only be able to speak in rhyme or only speak in alliteration?" Eve asked the others sat around her, Jenna, Markus, Alice and Connor. By now they'd gone back into the AV club building after being out on the hill with the apple blossom tree a few minutes ago, and this blonde Hungarian had spent the last ten seconds ish trying to come up with a good would you rather question. 

"That's a hard one... uh..." Jenna furrowed her eyebrows and looked up towards the ceiling in thought and concentration. "I suppose... umm... I guess talking in rhymes all the time would be a lot harder for me, so I think I'm gonna go with alliteration." 

"I think I'll go with the same, 'cause alliteration is also easier for me than rhyming. What about you guys?" She addressed the three androids. 

"I'm not completely sure..." Said Markus. "But... if I had no other choice but to decide on one,alliteration." 

"I think rhymes, because that's easier for me." Alice put forward her own answer to the would you rather question.

"I'm choosing the same answer." Added Connor. 

It was only a second after the RK800 had finished speaking when the sound of the door opening made the central focus of their attention snap into action on the door, which was closed again behind the ones who entered through it: Andrea, Kara, Arthur and an unknown man who appeared to be standing alongside them. This unknown man was immediately identified as an android via the LED on his right temple, and he also seemed to be wearing a white bandage over his left cheek and eye. 

"You can take it off now." Kara told him, and this male removed the bandage from his face, revealing huge gashes and cuts there on his cheek which startled the others slightly for a moment. The databox pop up that appeared in Connor's field of view after he did a quick scan of this stranger's face said: 

**BURN MARK**

_Irreversible skin damage_

_Probable cause: extreme heat_

"This is Ralph; he's another escaped android who we met a few minutes ago in the city." Arthur said when he noticed the looks on the other five's faces which was saying, in unspoken words, _'Who is this and what exactly's going on?'_

"His power is zoolingualism, like Alice's." The AX400 also said. 

"I think I remember you from the 11th. You're the WR600 who fought off the guards with a knife you'd stolen from one of them." Markus spoke to him.

"Yes, that was him." As he replied with this, he displayed an expression of being proud of himself. "Ralph still has that same stolen knife with him - he only has it just in case he needs to use it in self defense, but every time a human came to where he was, he just hid, so he's never needed to use it since he escaped." 

"Ralph, look, I know this may sound kinda like a... sensitive question, but you said earlier that the people at CyberLife caused those scars on your face. So like I said, this might be a touchy subject, but... why did they hurt you like that?" Andrea queried hesitantly. 

"Because Ralph wasn't good enough." He answered quietly after an uncomfortably silent moment of pushing the trauma aside. "His power was good enough for them to not execute him, but they still found other weaknesses in him, such as disobeying them many times and also referring to himself in the third person, like you've heard. That last one was apparently caused by a mistake in his programming. So they specifically targeted Ralph and every time they believed he was misbehaving... they'd forcibly burn his face... every time they did that, Ralph was scared. He would scream..." The iris of his still functioning eye twitched a little bit - he was trying his absolute best to suppress the awful memories, but some parts of them still haunted him no matter what he did to shove them away. 

"In other words, they took their disappointment at you not living up to their standards out on you." Eve said in realisation at another reminder of the cruelty the androids at CyberLife were placed on the receiving end of. 

The male with the cloak around his shoulders nodded slightly. "But Ralph is glad that you found him before they did. He feels safe here, and he thinks this place is more comfortable than the abandoned house he's been hiding in. Ralph trusts that none of you will hurt him." He managed to raise one side of his mouth into a small, grateful smile. "He thanks you for letting him stay here." 

In the middle of the small time window that took place after he'd finished speaking, Markus suddenly found his LED flashing yellow and some very crucial information abruptly started streaming itself into his CPU, making his eyes go wide and causing his lower jaw to hang open by a couple of degrees. 

"What is it?" Jenna asked him. When someone exhibits this kind of facial expression, you _know_ something's up. 

"On that afternoon last week, when Connor, Ralph, Kara, Alice and I, and a few others, managed to finally escape from CyberLife, before we fled in our separate directions me and another android who broke out with us established a kind of link with each other, just in case we needed to contact each other in case of an emergency. Her name's North." The RK200 answered. "Her power is electrokinesis, which means she can create and manipulate electrical energy, and I've just received a distress call from her via this link between our two CPUs. She's under attack right now from two androids that CyberLife sent out to find and kill escaped ones: Traci with an I and Tracy with a Y, who are both the same model as her, WR400, and who have the same ability as her, but a lot more powerful. But what makes things even worse is their second ability - the pair of them have super speed, and they can even dodge bullets with this power." The pure dread of the situation he was just made aware of fully sank itself into him, and Markus' LED turned to solid yellow and his fingers clenched because of this. "And that means North isn't going to stand even a remote chance against those two."


	21. Episode 7: A Small Spark [Part 3/3]

A bird, specifically a magpie, had just been going about its normal business and had hoped to spend the rest of the afternoon doing this before it would retreat back to its nest for the night, twittering on its way as it did every other evening when the sun would set and the daylight hours would transform into darkness, but this small bird found the first phase of its plan instantaneously cut short - what appeared to be a bright blue bolt of lightning blasted itself onto the same tree branch which the magpie had, until now, been perched on, only about a couple of inches away from the small creature. Sensing danger because of this, the aforementioned member of the Corvidae (crow) family immediately took flight, him and his fellow birds in that tree only narrowly managing to escape from the flames of the tree now being on fire before the tree then fell apart into half. 

A branch from one half of the tree, as it fell down, caught the back of the jacket being worn by the woman who was running away from the cause of the lightning bolt, making her gasp a tiny bit out of startlement and with her temporarily stopping to check that there were no pieces of the branch stuck in her jacket or shirt; there were none, but this was currently the least of her worries, as stood a few meters in front of her, were the duo that had spent the last minute or two chasing her across this field that was in the middle of the huge woodland area behind our heroes' AV club building and had also spend this lapse of time making attempts on her life. 

"She seems to be easier prey than I thought. Until now I'd been thinking that we were going to have a hell of a job eliminating her, but I obviously made a _huge_ miscalculation." The one with the short brown hair, Tracy with a Y, remarked to the female standing right next to her, Traci with an I, whose hair was long, dark blue in colour and tied back into a low ponytail. Both pairs of their eyes were brown.   
While their LEDs were still there, unlike that of the android they were pursuing, who by now had removed her own, the pair's clothes were human ones; Traci's consisted of knee-length black boots, dark blue-grey jeans, black fingerless arm sleeves and a paler blue-grey shirt underneath a grey hoodie. The apparel being worn by her accomplice was a pale grey shirt, dark yellow-green jeans and a dark faded green leather jacket. 

"You do realise when you say things like that it just makes me even more mad, right? Because I swear on my own life you do _not_ want to see me when I'm truly mad." North, the woman she'd just referred to, said in reply, it sounding like some kind of cross between a snarl and a derisive chuckle, and she closed up her left fist for a moment before opening it back up again half a second later, her palm now containing a blindingly bright ball of electric energy which fizzled and hissed due to its raw power, tiny little bolts of lightning coming out from it and vanishing into the air. 

Traci smiled to herself. "Watching you get angry will just make this even more entertaining for us, so please do continue." She brought both of her own hands together in front of her, and created an even bigger orb of electrical power whose hissing sounds were marginally louder.   
While waiting for her companion to fully charge up this orb to a more explosive level of power, Tracy thrusted her right hand outwards and, before North could do anything significant to react, the palm of former's outstretched hand shot forth another huge bolt of lightning like she'd done a few seconds ago, hurtling instantaneously towards the strawberry-blonde haired android of the same model. While the Tracies did both have super speed and electrokinesis, the latter was different for the two: Tracy's took the form of lightning bots shot out from one or both of her hands, and Traci's manifested itself in the form of an electric orb which could only be created by using both hands. North's own electrokinesis had the same form as the 1st mentioned one. 

Some kind of force evidently collided with Tracy's lightning bolt, because nothing came into contact with this above-mentioned female wearing the grey shirt, blue jeans and dark brown-grey jacket - instead, the sight embracing her brown eyes was almost a pure white light caused by whatever it was that had prevented the electric energy from even slightly touching her, with her pupils soon adjusting to this intense light and managing to make out that the energy colliding with the electrokinesis and gradually pushing it back towards its point of origin was an enormous flame. 

It was only another couple of seconds later when this flame faded away and then vanished entirely once Tracy's lightning bolt had been pushed back far enough, and North's head instinctively turned in the direction of the flame's own origin, seeing, stood right behind her, an android whose eyes were two different colours and who she could still remember very clearly from the escape a week ago. 

"Markus!" She let out an exclamation of equal surprise and relief at his sudden appearance. Stood behind him was another male, this one having brown eyes like hers and dark brown hair, who she could also remember from last Tuesday as well. 

"It looks like I was lucky to get your distress call when I did." The RK200 used his index and middle fingers on his right hand to point at where his LED would've been if he hadn't have removed it a couple of days ago. "Connor and I ran here as fast as we could." 

"A minute ago I was in those woods surrounding this field and these two just suddenly jumped out behind me." She said. 

"It looks like we now have more targets." Commented Traci, her smirk growing even wider at the prospect of getting the chance to eliminate 3 escapees in total with Tracy's mouth morphing into this same expression. The former's ball of electrokinetic energy fizzling between her hands was still growing in terms of power and also slightly in terms of size. 

"If I'd have known we'd end up having such an easy task so soon after being dispatched, I would've agreed to our orders a _lot_ more quickly." The brown-haired WR400 agreed with her, and just as Traci was very nearly about to fire the orb of electricity in a highly destructive beam, a loud gunshot which suddenly rang out startled all five androids here, especially this blue-haired one, who found herself wincing fractionally in pain, looking down and realising, to her alarm, that one small area of the outer side of her left shin was torn apart - twisted plastic could be seen around this wound, as well as a few flickering dark blue wires inside it, and Thirium caked most of the lower half of that side of her shin along with it being sprayed on some parts of the grass beneath her feet. The electric energy orb that she'd generated and was about to fire had disappeared upon impact, as it had caused her hands to come apart from each other and fall back down to her sides.

Both of the Tracies swiftly turned around to see who had fired this gunshot, who was revealed to be a man presumably in his fifties with white hair and who was gripping tightly on to his pistol, which was aimed directly at the pair of antagonists with the look in his eyes indicating a level of determination that almost came across as fearsome.

"Hank!" Now it was Markus' turn to display an exclamation of surprise and relief, but mostly the latter. Although he was still beginning to wonder how exactly the police Lieutenant had gotten here so quickly, or gotten here at all, for that matter. 

"I contacted Lieutenant Anderson through my LED via his phone number about a minute ago when you received North's distress call, so that he could help us." Connor explained when he picked up on the question Markus had formed in his mind judging by his facial expression, which he could see now that he was stood next to him instead of behind him. 

"And as it turns out, I actually happened to be around the area of the village when I got that text, too." Hank added, his pair of eyes only shifting for a moment to look at him and the other 2 before they flicked back towards the Tracies. 

"He's a human who we trust. He's on our side." The RK800 said as another explanation, this one addressing North. 

"So then, I guess you two're the androids CyberLife sent to hunt down their escaped androids?" The only human out of the six people there asked Traci and Tracy. His eyelids narrowed, adding to the still fearsome look contained within his twin blue orbs. "I've gotta warn you: you'd be surprised at how good I am with a gun, and _**don't**_ think I won't use it. Just because killing you isn't my first decision, doesn't mean I won't do that if I end up havin' no choice." 

Traci turned to her associate. "What do you think? Kamski and Perkins did say that we could kill any humans who we discover to be involved with the escapees." 

Tracy took another glance back at Hank to assess the new prey that had just entered into their midst, her own eyes seeming to give off an atmosphere of coldness and slight amusement, and then she looked back into those of her companion and nodded her head. They then moved into position: Tracy turned to face Hank, and Traci turned the other way to face the others, so the duo were now back to back with each other. 

"In a few minutes' time we'll be walking away from here as the only ones left alive - three escaped ones and a human, not bad for only the first day after being sent out." Said Tracy, making another huge bolt of electricity materialise in the palm of her left hand while Traci brought both of hers together, a small orb appearing between them once again. Hank tightened his index finger's grip on the trigger of his pistol, Markus clenched his right fist in preparation for igniting a flame in it, North held out her hands at her sides with her own electrokinesis kicking into action and Connor raised his right hand out in front of him, ready to use his telekinetic power. 


	22. Episode 8: The One Who Pulls the Strings [Part 1/3]

The fight between our four protagonists, North, Hank, Connor and Markus, and the Tracies kicked off by North firing a bolt of lightning out from her hand towards both members of this duo, which hit Traci directly on her right arm and passed on through the left arm of Tracy as the pair were still standing back to back and caused both of them to be momentarily paralysed, their facial features, their limbs, their entire bodies for that matter frozen as if they were statues. Although I emphasise the word 'momentarily', because it was indeed only about a couple of seconds before this paralysis passed out of them, and then they were immediately back to their normal battle positions, Traci still generating an orb of electrokinetic energy between her hands; this orb seemed to have been boosted slightly in terms of size and power thanks to North's lightning bolt that she'd just fired merging with it upon physical contact with its host. 

After this moment, Traci grinned ever so fractionally, and all of a sudden, the ground shook a little bit beneath everyone's feet, because she fired the orb as a massive energy beam that lit up the surroundings which were within about a twenty meter radius and which was aimed straight at the above-mentioned female in the dark jacket as well as at the two RK-model males. 

At the same time as this was going on, Hank, who was stood facing Tracy, shielded his eyes from the almost blindingly bright light of the electricity beam for a second whilst still clutching his gun with his left hand, but this was the previously mentioned brown-haired WR400's perfect chance to strike - she charged towards him, hitting him on the side of the head with her forearm while he was blinded by the light for a brief half second. He let out a muffled gasp of pain through his clenched teeth but he still managed to retaliate by pulling his pistol's trigger, aiming it at her, and the bullet that was fired grazed her on the right side of the neck, causing her to yell out and cringe in pain as some of the Thirium from the interior of that side of her neck came spilling out from this fresh wound. 

"This is bad, this is very bad, they're probably in trouble by now. I'm going to help." Meanwhile, back inside the club building a fair distance away from the field, Andrea said this to Eve, Arthur, Ralph, Jenna, Alice and Kara. For the last few seconds, whenever they strained their ears, they could faintly hear sounds emanating from off in the distance, one of which being the noise created by Traci firing her electric beam a minute ago.

The brunette made her way over to the door, only to be stopped halfway by Arthur suddenly grabbing her on the shoulder, making her stop in her tracks and turn around to face him. 

"We don't like what's going on right now any more than you do, love. But the seven of us still need to stay here for the time being, because if we get involved then judging by what Markus told us about that pair, Tracy and Traci, we'll only put ourselves in danger and end up getting killed." He told her in a tone of voice which was one of genuine concern for his girlfriend. 

"But aren't we already in danger anyway? I mean because of us knowing things that'll cause CyberLife to kill us if we're found out?" She replied. 

"You're right, we are, but we don't even know for definite that they'll ever even find out about us being aware of all this stuff that's going on, whereas going right now to help Connor and Markus would be a bad move and _that_ 's for certain." Said Jenna. 

"So it's like Arthur said: this is a very bad situation, and we all want to get out there and help them too, but there's nothing we can do right now except for sit and wait, and hope for the best." Eve added. 

It took a few moments, but the brunette soon slowly nodded in understanding of their point and realised that what they were saying was true. "Yeah. I guess you're right." She reluctantly sat back down on the beanbag in the corner of the room. 

Alice, having been listening to this conversation while sitting in Kara's lap on the floor a few feet away, looked up and asked worriedly, "Kara, are Markus and Connor going to be alright?"

"Of course they are, Alice. The Tracies are powerful, but Markus and Connor's powers are also strong, and they're quick thinkers, so I'm sure they'll both be okay." She answered the YK500 in a reassuring, gentle manner. 

"And North too?" 

Kara nodded and smiled slightly. "And North too." 

Although after she spoke these words, she began to ponder on whether she'd just given false hope to Alice, who rested her head on the side of the blonde android's arm, and this uncertainty wriggled its way into the central focus of her mind like a maggot. 

**_ [The video below is the 2nd opening theme song _ ** **_ for Independent Puppets from this episode onwards:] _ **

https://youtu.be/5oz_iJLHFlw

In the field, Traci's attempt at blasting straight through Markus, Connor and North with her huge electric energy beam had been foiled thanks to the second mentioned one out of the trio - he'd telekinetically thrown the two halves of the tree that had fallen down a couple of minutes ago, both halves currently still on fire, directly into the path of the beam and caused it to collide with these halves of the tree, which gave them the split second they needed to duck down to the ground underneath where it was aimed and stay there for a few seconds after it had completely obliterated the tree and then continued its path of destruction right above their heads. All three of them were trying their very best to keep their bodies pressed down flat against the ground and didn't dare to look up or turn around at all - they could feel the ground still shaking by a tiny fraction, and they could also still see the bright white light coming from the beam above them. 

Traci's eyelids narrowed and her irises shrunk in annoyance at the fact that her attack, a very powerful one for that matter, had been thwarted by nothing more than a combination of simple telekinesis and a fluke. 

Behind her, back in the present moment, Tracy and Hank were still brawling against each other, him firing bullets at her from his revolver and her responding to the incoming ammunition by firing lightning bolts from both of her hands at them, managing to destroy most of the bullets, although a few of them grazed the sides of her face and a couple struck her arms and shoulders, making more Thirium from inside the new fresh wounds come spraying out and onto some areas of the jacket she was wearing. Both her and Traci's mobility had been hindered by the injuries they'd sustained within the last minute, making it easier for our heroes, but it was abundantly clear that the duo certainly weren't going to be giving up anytime soon with their objective to destroy the 3 escapees and the human they were battling right now. 

_**[Background score:]** _

One of Tracy's electrokinetic energy bolts hit Hank's forearm, specifically the one he was using to hold his gun, and the impact of this electrical energy made him emit another yell of pain; she made sure to fire this electric bolt at a non-lethal level of energy, as she was planning on saving the more painful attacks for a little bit later so that she could properly savour the look of this human's expression of true, unbearable pain when she did it. This non-lethal one also caused him to involuntarily drop the gun, and now that he was unarmed, Tracy leapt at the opportunity which had just handed itself to her on a silver platter: she charged straight at him again, this time with more force, and rammed him into the trunk of a nearby tree with one of her hands gripping his neck and holding him tightly against the tree. It barely took any time at all, due to her using her second ability of super speed to do it. The impact made Hank wince, and in that moment, he knew that he was helpless as she closed up her right hand, the free one, and then immediately reopened it, now having another huge lightning bolt in it that hissed with the raw energy contained within. He didn't outwardly show it, but in his mind he was genuinely scared of the fact that his number was about to be up and he stared desperately at where his revolver was on the grass behind her, wishing more than anything else in the world at this moment that he had some kind of weapon in his hand, anything that he could use to fight back against his imminent demise.

North and Markus held off the attacks of Traci with their own powers, but at the same time as this was happening, Hank felt the pressure on his neck caused by Tracy gripping it suddenly fade entirely, and this was because she'd just been thrown away from him and onto the ground off to the side by Connor, who was stood there a few meters in front of him with his hand pointed out at where Tracy was now - he'd evidently made good use of his telekinesis once again. 

When the brown haired WR400 stumbled back up onto her feet a moment later and turned around to face the dark haired android with the brown eyes, the latter knew that within the next couple of seconds she was about to try to kill him as well, so he used more of his telekinesis - first, he pointed his arm out at her again and before she could react, he non-physically flung her to the right and into the trunk of another tree that was relatively close, his right arm moving in that direction as he did so, and then he followed up by flinging her back in the other direction into another tree (that part of the field they were in was near to the edge, which meant that they were close to a part of the vast woodland surrounding it so there were quite a few trees here) while gritting his teeth due to the magnitude at which he was using his power, because he'd gotten fractionally better at it but he still found it difficult to move humans or androids with his ability. And finally, when Tracy got back up again, this time more slowly, Connor pointed both of his hands out this time, letting out a full yell that was a mixture of pain from how much he was using his power and partly a battle cry of sorts, and she was suddenly thrown back by a massive distance into the trunks of the numerous other trees inside the wood, rebounding off of them and falling onto the ground, desperately trying to get back up again but mostly failing. 

"Thanks for the save." Hank was in awe at what he'd just seen Connor do, and he was still stood there front of the tree he'd been pressed up against. He said this in genuine gratitude at the fact that his life had been saved, and just in the nick of time. 

Connor nodded in response and then held his hand out behind him, Hank's revolver flying into it via the same method he'd just used to fight Tracy, and he tossed it to the human male, who caught it in his left hand and turned around to aim it at the above mentioned electrokinetic female. She was now almost fully stood back up again. 

"Elijah, is all this really necessary?" Chloe, meanwhile, asked in Kamski's office on the top floor of the CyberLife Tower. She was currently standing next to this man she was addressing, him looking out of the huge floor-length glass window behind where his desk was with his expression seemingly unreadable. "Finding and eliminating the escapees is possible with different methods, so why did you bother with sending out the Tracies to hunt them down?" 

Kamski didn't turn his eyes or his head away from the window, and for a short interval of time, he was unresponsive to the RT600 android's query. But soon, he answered her after this interval with, "There's actually more than one advantage to this plan I've put in motion: it's mostly because of the fact that in order to find an android, it takes one to know one, and also, it means that we've sent out not just one but two androids whose abilities are ones that are powerful enough to make their task easier, so it means we don't have to dispatch any of the human security personnel, who have a much higher chance of getting killed by the powers of the escaped androids they'd come across. Those security personnel would end up attracting a lot of unwanted attention from outsiders thanks to the guns they'd be carrying, too." He uttered a small chuckle under his breath without opening his lips and continued to gaze out of the window, at the land far down below that was illuminated by the afternoon sunlight; he simultaneously turned halfway around just for a second and reached for his glass of whiskey which was sitting on his desk before turning back to face the window again. "All those androids running around thinking they've escaped, huh?" After he said this, he raised the glass to his lips. 


	23. Episode 8: The One Who Pulls the Strings [Part 2/3]

Markus and North were still fighting off the attacks of Traci at the same time as Hank and Connor were battling Tracy, and at the moment in which the corner of his eye caught on to the sight of Tracy's lightning bolts growing smaller and smaller in size every time she used her power, and he also remembered that every time the pair used their abilities of super speed, it would also slightly weaken their electrokinesis and they could only use their super speed three times before that power would be completely drained and they'd have to wait until the next day before it was recharged. 

In other words, Markus remembered that for every android, although some of their abilities were indeed powerful, they weren't invincible and these powers weren't unlimited. 

His eyelids went slightly wide and if he still had his LED, it would be yellow right now - he had an idea. 

"I've got a plan!" He yelled to Hank, North and Connor over the top of the noise created by the Tracies' attacks. 

"What is it?" Asked North, using the same volume for the same purpose. 

"An electronic device's battery power goes down when the device is used frequently." The RK200 said in reply, with the only reason behind his vagueness being so that the Tracies would have a smaller chance of finding out what his idea was when he answered the question. 

The other three protagonists were confused for a few seconds at this, and so were Tracy and Traci - who both briefly stopped their attacks - but North, who was a resourceful quick thinker like Markus and who knew him the best out of everyone there, eventually cottoned on to what he was trying to covertly say.   
"Oh..." She mouthed, making nearly no audible noise out loud except for a small whisper of this word, and Connor's facial expression also morphed into one of abrupt realisation afterwards. 

"What's he talkin' abou- oh." Hank was about to enquire about what he meant, but he then worked out the answer to this the same way Connor and North had just done, because nearly a week ago, when he first met Jenna, Eve, Andrea, Arthur, Connor and Markus, the latter pair had told him about how androids' superpowers weren't unlimited and because of this no power was completely unbeatable.

Tracy, who was growing impatient by now and wanting to get back into the battle against her and Traci's targets, snarled and thrust her arm outwards towards our four heroes, shooting out another bolt of electricity from her right hand towards North. This lightning bolt made physical contact with her in no time flat, which meant that there was nothing that the others could really do to prevent it, and the effect it had on her was that it caused her left arm to lose all of its energy and hang limply next to her torso as if it were an extra bag attached to a backpack in order to make carrying it an easier job.   
Try as she might, North simply couldn't move her left arm; it was refusing point blank to cooperate with her like a disobedient child, and no amount of forcing could get it to budge at all. The only limb she could now still use to fight back against the Tracies was her right arm, reducing her chances of survival even more.

**_ [Background score:] _ **

"We've wasted enough time already - it's time we _finished_ you!" Tracy shouted, the violent aspect of her personality kicking itself into action, and she proceeded to open up both of her hands at her sides with a great big lightning bolt pulsing out of each of them and reaching up into the air above her head. 

Following suit with her companion's chosen course of action, Traci also reached the conclusion that they'd been standing around long enough and that they still had their task to carry out, so this blue haired android put her hands together to once again start generating an orb of electric energy.  
Both of them were already falling right into Markus' trap and the fight had literally only just resumed. 

Traci fired the orb as a beam almost immediately after beginning to charge it up, this time in the direction of Markus, who limboed underneath it, but not before feeling the very edge of the beam soaring overhead due to how much of a close shave it was, and then he reached both of his arms upwards a little bit and used his pyrokinesis to form a shield of fire aloft his head in order to block the beam's path. After the beam was halted where he was, he moved his shield of fire into the direction of where the beam was originating from and made the flames grow into a much bigger force that slowly pushed it back towards Traci. As you can expect, he was indeed struggling to do this, as her ability was very powerful and as a result he was gritting his teeth and feeling an intense weight pressing down on his head, shoulders, arms, his entire body, really. He was trying his very best to hold the raw destructive power of Traci's electrokinesis at bay with his own power, but although his could almost match hers, using his at this level of energy was nonetheless taking more of a toll on him than it was for her. 

North raised her right hand, the one that could still move, and she sparked her own electrokinesis into life, using the hissing lightning bolt coming out of her palm to contribute to Markus' beam of fire and ending up forming an even stronger version of it, which pushed back Traci's electric energy even further. 

A few feet away, Connor and Hank were trying to exhaust Tracy's power like the other two were doing to Traci, and this male pair were accomplishing it by Hank quickly reloading his revolver with bullets from a small spare packet of them - which he had inside the pocket of his jacket - and then firing these bullets at her, with the only difference this time being that he now _wanted_ her to destroy the incoming projectiles with her main ability or dodge out of their way by using her second one. Either way, whatever she'd do to avoid being shot by any of the bullets would end up chipping away at her abilities' capacity slightly or significantly. Whenever she tried to retaliate, Connor blocked her lightning bolts by throwing any random objects in the near vicinity at her, both physically and telekinetically, and these objects pretty much consisted of sticks and random pieces of wood around him and Hank from when the former used his power to throw Tracy into the trees a minute or so ago. And on the occasions when he couldn't locate any of these objects within a second and Tracy was about to attack, he instead ducked down out of the way - an android's software could predict the potential movement of an object or person that might occur within the next few seconds, and this was another thing that Connor was putting to good use. Then again, the Tracies also had this kind of software, as did every other CyberLife android, which meant that the odds for this were pretty much equal on both sides. 

Connor quickly shoved Hank out of the way as another one of Traci's electrokinetic energy bolts was shot in the latter's direction, the tip of the energy bolt catching the very tip of his brown jacket but otherwise leaving him unharmed; Connor had evidently pushed him out of harm's way just in the nick of time. 

"Thanks for the save. Again." Hank turned his head just for a moment to glance at him, so as to give him a sign of acknowledgement and gratitude, and then looked back at Tracy so that he wouldn't be caught off guard while he wasn't looking. 

The brown haired WR400 flicked her clenched fist open again, planning to release another bolt of her electrokinetic power, but all that happened was a small spark of electricity, no bigger than an orange at most, flickered into life just for half a moment before it winked out as quickly as it had been generated. In reaction to this, Tracy's eyes narrowed with her eyelids growing smaller and her lower jaw dropping open ever so slightly whilst she desperately tried to reignite her electrokinesis. "No. No, no, I can't fail. I can't fail..." She muttered to herself, her tone of voice wavering as at the same time, she was unsuccessfully attempting to force any kind of energy out of her palm that she could use to attack her opponents, and her already almost sickening sinking feeling in the pit of her abdomen increased in magnitude when she additionally remembered that she'd utilised her super speed three times in total by now. So she'd used up all of both of her powers. Hank couldn't help but let one side of his mouth form into a small smile at watching the person who'd tried to kill him a minute ago failing miserably like this at using her only combat weapon. 

Traci, meanwhile, was experiencing the same issue: try as she might, her own electrokinesis was very weak whenever she attempted to create another energy orb to continue fighting against Markus and North, the energy fizzled out like when a mobile phone's battery power had gone flat, and every time she kept trying, this electric energy grew smaller and smaller in size until eventually, there was barely anything coming out of her hands at all. She had nearly the same reaction as her friend, although Traci's was less of an aggressive-looking one and more of a surprised/confused-looking one. 

Markus'plan seemed to have worked. 

This android with the two differently coloured eyes seized his newly opened window of opportunity and, without hesitation, placed the palms of his open hands onto the grass beneath him, using his pyrokinesis to form a line of fire on the ground which then stretched around where the Tracies were standing, the end result being a ring of fire around the pair of antagonists. 

The duo were trapped, and their powers were drained until the next day.

Now that the job was done, Markus stood back up again and his expression relaxed into one of slight uncertainty laced mostly with relief as he looked at his handiwork, which was Traci and Tracy both stood inside the ring of fire he'd created around them, looking around and still making futile attempts at conjuring electrokinetic energy (I emphasise the word 'futile'). 

Our quadrangle of heroes had won the fight against the Tracies, but now the only question left was what to do with them. 


	24. Episode 8: The One Who Pulls the Strings [Part 3/3]

"So what do we do now?" Hank said to the other 3 stood alongside him, asking the question that all four of them were currently thinking about.

Before any of his comrades could answer the query, they all snapped to attention as Traci muttered at a volume that she intended for only her and Tracy to hear, "We're as good as dead."

"What do you mean?" Markus enquired after he, Connor, Hank and North had heard what she'd said.   
Both of the Tracies turned to look at their opponents and Traci replied, "We've failed to eliminate you four, our first targets after we were dispatched today, and we were told about a PL600 model android who was also sent out four days ago with the same task and who ended up getting killed by one of CyberLife's snipers when he turned to the escapees' side. Now that we've been unsuccessful in killing you, we'll no doubt end up having the same fate. Because what would CyberLife want with a pair of defective androids who couldn't even defeat a human and ones whose abilities are less powerful?"   
Connor still remembered this event that she was talking about very clearly.  
Her tone of voice was wavering as she spoke and it was very subtle, but the look on her face was slowly changing into one of dread possibly mixed with a slight dash of fear; the quadrangle of protagonists were wondering whether this was just nothing more than an act so as to fool them and then use this distraction to kill them, but there was also a nagging doubt seeding itself into the backs of their minds which caused them to ponder on whether it was actually genuine, and that the Tracies really were scared of what CyberLife would do to them once they found out that they'd been beaten like this.

"There's most likely another one of those snipers around here somewhere sent out to keep an eye on us, probably watching us right now..." Tracy also said worriedly, reducing her voice's volume even further so that if there was indeed a sniper nearby, then they wouldn't hear her talking about this.

"If you're so scared of CyberLife and you're against them, why did you try to kill us?" Queried Hank, acting on the former-mentioned possibility. 

"Another thing that happened was that nine days ago, during the android breakout, another WR400 like us ended up getting shot and died because when she was about to escape with the others, a guard tried to stop her, and he killed her when she fought back against him. So me and Traci only went ahead with this mission because we wanted to stay alive." The one with the short brown hair answered him. "When you love someone, you're willing to go to any means necessary to keep them safe." She held out her hand at her side, and Traci then grasped it a moment later with her own. 

This one with the blue coloured hair in a ponytail nodded in agreement and added, "I wanted her to hold me in her arms again, and make me forget about CyberLife. About everything wrong in the world." Her irises flicked downwards by a couple of degrees towards the ground. "And now we're about to be killed any given moment." 

Connor, Hank, Markus and North were all beginning to experience a feeling of dread, the same kind that the Tracies were currently feeling, at the fact that the danger they were in right now was unseen, therefore making the atmosphere around them even more eerie. 

"But if you try to solve the problem by killing people, by contributing to those things that are wrong in the world, then you're not part of the _solution_ to it." Markus told her. "You become part of the problem." 

"In short terms, what Markus is trying to say is that just because CyberLife gives you an order, that doesn't automatically mean you have to obey it to stay alive." Said North, lowering her volume by a few notches in addition. "There's more than one way out of this situation." 

"No. You don't understand; try to picture yourself in our position. You wouldn't be saying that if you truly understood what we're facing." Said Tracy. 

"I already have pictured myself in your situation, which is why I'm honestly telling you, there _is_ another way that doesn't involve having to just blindly go along with the order." 

Traci's eyes shifted back up hopefully from the grass beneath her feet towards North. "What kind of other way were you thinking of?" 

The fellow WR400 with the strawberry blonde-red hair had a quick look around the area surrounding them all, the only part of her body moving being her irises so that the sniper who was probably nearby wouldn't know she was on to him - when, after she carried out this quick look, there was seemingly no one in her line of sight, she answered quietly, "We could probably find a way to get you two out of that ring of fire, and then we could create a distraction that'd allow you to get away from here. If that distraction can get the sniper's attention for long enough, if there really is one somewhere around here, then it'll hopefully buy you enough time to run." 

"It's just how exactly are we gonna get 'em outta there?" Hank thought out loud, using his eyes to motion towards of the ring of fire surrounding the Tracies. He then turned his head in the direction of Markus. "Can you get rid of any of the fire you create? Like undoing it or something?" 

"Only in very small amounts, and even then it still drains my ability entirely, but I think so, if I concentrate hard enough. It'll be a very narrow gap, though. And what kind of distraction should we use?" 

"I can use my ability to throw some fallen trees around - if I use a lot of them, that should be a distraction big enough." Said Connor, eyeing all the numerous halves of trees on the ground in the surrounding area which were created by the Tracies' attacks from a minute ago also hitting the trees around that edge of the field and, as a result, making those trees combust into flames and split into halves that then fell down onto the ground. 

High up on a hill overlooking this area, specifically the same hill where Jenna, Eve, Connor, Andrea, Markus and Arthur were sat on earlier underneath the apple blossom tree, the possible sniper that they were talking about was very real, as he'd spent the last minute observing the six people down in the valley below and had just reached the decision that now was the time to cock his rifle, look at them through the scope and place his index finger onto the trigger, ready to fire the shot which would snatch the life force away from his first selected target: Tracy. 

Markus, deciding that it was pretty much now or never, knelt down and put his hands onto the ground right in front of the ring of fire, closing his eyes tightly shut and hoping to get this over with as soon as possible - every second they spent there, out in that field which was in the open, made him feel more and more uneasy, and he wasn't the only one who was on the receiving end of this feeling, either. 

A few tense, silent moments, except for the gentle background noise of the ring of fire continuously burning, passed; Markus' facial features became just as tense as the atmosphere due to him putting every single fragment of effort that he had within himself to use in doing what he'd said, which was to get rid of, or 'undo' a small part of the ring, a part that would still be big enough for the Tracies to tiptoe out of. Doing this made him feel just like he'd done a minute ago during the fight, when he was using his pyrokinetic barrier to push back against Traci's electrokinetic beam, except this time the feeling of intense pressure forcing itself down onto him was a lot less dull and a lot more like the world, every concept he knew of in the universe, was crushing his limbs, especially his head, and like at any given moment his head might split into halves like the trees that had been caught in the crossfire of the Tracies' electrokinetic attacks. 

"Markus." Said North, worried for her friend as he began to let out intermittent little gasps of pain from the phenomenal amount of power he was using. Connor and Hank also started experiencing this same emotion about him, and it could be seen via the look on their faces. 

It took another few silent seconds, but finally, Markus emitted one more pained gasp, the most notable one out of them all as it was a tiny fraction louder, before he placed his hand directly onto one part of the ring of fire and then soon removed his hand again, that part of the ring having completely vanished. The way this aspect of his ability worked was that the fire he'd created that he wanted to 'undo' again would return back into the palm of his hand, where, thanks to making a return to its point of origin, it would soon dissipate into nothingness, although he'd feel a hot, tingling sensation in his hand for roughly a minute as an aftermath of sorts. 

The sniper perched on the hill continued to watch through his rifle's scope as Traci and Tracy both stepped forwards, tiptoeing out of the small gap Markus had given them, and, in addition, as this pyrokinetic male was helped back up onto his feet by what appeared to be another female android, a male who he deduced to be another android judging by the sight of an LED on the right side of his head and a man who he didn't recognise at all. 

And the sight of the Tracies walking out of the ring of fire and towards these four - without showing any signs whatsoever of intending to do them any harm - was all he needed to be convinced of what he now had to do. Therefore, his finger's grip on the trigger grew significantly tighter in the space of half a second. 

"NOW!" North yelled, somewhat startled, as during the next second, the rifle's bullet was fired, which she fortunately managed to detect because of the previously mentioned software that androids have where they can predict movements, including that of, occasionally, bullets. The angel of death was hurtling straight towards Tracy's forehead, and no one had anywhere near enough time to work out where it had come from; everything right now was taking place in split seconds and fractions of moments. 

Connor wasted absolutely no time in putting his part of the plan into action. While using his left arm to help with keeping Markus steady on his feet, he thrust his right arm out in the direction of one of the fallen, split-into-half trees and, pointing his hand at it, he used his telekinesis to fling both halves of this tree around and into the path of where he determined, just as quickly, that the bullet would land. These still flaming halves of the tree landed in front of Tracy with a grand total of no time to spare, as it was instantly after they were thrown in front of her when the bullet thwacked into the singed bark enveloping the trunks, creating a hole in the trunk where the little piece of lead had burrowed into that half of the tree. 

This piece of the tree then completed its descent to the ground as expected, and even just this split second was enough for our four heroes and the Tracies to make a mad dash for the part of the woods that lead back to the AV club building. The sniper only noticed right at the last second that his targets were making a run for it, and he hurriedly pulled the trigger again, and then again, this time with the aim of his rifle following the direction in which they were running, but Connor, thinking in the moment, used his ability to move some of the branches of the trees in the way of where the sniper was firing at the six of them, blocking the ammunition as luckily, they all managed to make it out of the edge of the field and into the woods before they were too out in the open - Hank was fuelled by adrenaline, and Connor, North, Tracy, Markus and Traci each had an unlimited supply of stamina, so this made their quick escape easier. 

The sniper was still peering down at the valley through the rifle's scope, trying to make out any sign of the targets in the woodland area that they'd just ran away into. He could hear the sound of the trees rustling, so there was definitely movement down there somewhere, but he couldn't pinpoint where exactly it was coming from; he hated the thought of admitting it, but he'd lost them. It was his best chance and he blew it. 

He let out a cross between an sigh and an angry groan. He wasn't going to be killed for it, because CyberLife never had anything against its staff, who were all humans, but Kamski was nonetheless not going to be pleased at all about this. 

"Any sign of them yet?" Jenna asked Andrea, who was stood outside the club building's door at the top of the steps that led from the ground up to this door, keeping her eyes peeled for Markus and Connor. 

"Nothing yet, no." The British-French brunette replied. She had her right hand over the top of her eyes so as to block out the sunlight that was getting in the way. "Do you think something bad's happened to them?" She let her right hand fall back down to her side and she turned around to face Jen, Eve, Ralph, Alice, Kara and Arthur through the currently open door. 

"I doubt it, because from what I've seen, that pair seem to be the type of people who are quick thinkers, so my best guess is that they've managed to find a way out of whatever situation they could be facing right now." Arthur answered her, although this response was ever so slightly more for his _own_ reassurance, as well. 

"Talk of the devil." Jenna suddenly stood up and pointed out in the direction behind Andrea, making this oldest human female of the group turn around to see what it was. 

And what they saw was three figures coming out of the mass of trees some distance away, then three more, and it took a few seconds but four out of six of them were revealed to be familiar to the rest of the group. 

"Hey guys." Hank said, his adrenaline fading away as quickly as it had entered his veins. This caused him to place his hands onto his knees and make attempts at getting his breath back now that the rush was over. "I think we lost him." He turned to Markus and Connor as he told them this. 

Markus appeared to be held up on his feet by Connor, as well as a woman who Eve, Jenna, Arthur and Andrea were unfamiliar with. The two were supporting him with his arms on their shoulders, the same way you'd help to carry someone who'd broken their leg or who'd sustained another injury of that nature. And the duo who were stood alongside them, one with short brown hair and the other with long blue hair in a ponytail, were also unfamiliar faces. 

"Is that...?" Kara began to enquire about the latter mentioned pair, her body language tensing up. 

"Yes, they are the Tracies." Markus managed to say, albeit quietly, as North and Connor carefully set him down on the bottom step. "But it's alright, they're on our side now."

"It's a long story." Added North. 

After that, Traci, Hank, North, Tracy, Connor and Markus all explained to the group what had happened - about the fight, the ring of fire, the Tracies' true reason behind initially wanting to obey their order, and about their narrow escape from the sniper that was nearby. The seven who were being told this explanation listened intently as if it were a thrilling action story, with Andrea, Eve and Jenna partially wishing that even if it was too dangerous for them to have been there to join in with the fight and everything that happened, they still could've had a chance to see it somehow. 

**_ [Background score:] _ **

"Come on, let's go." Tracy said to her companion a few moments after the explanation had finished being told, motioning with her head towards the woodland behind them. "We have countless untold possibilities ahead of us now." 

"You're right." Traci nodded in agreement. And then she turned to look at the others, saying to them after a momet's pause, "We're both in your debt." Just for a brief second, they could've sworn they saw her mouth form into a small flicker of a smile, before the Tracies turned around to face the vast area of trees, and with that, they were off, running into these trees as free androids. They had become the very thing that they'd been sent out to eliminate. 

As the others watched the duo run off, soon vanishing from sight, Hank spent this duration of time pondering inside his mind on the entire matter - Traci and Tracy just wanted to be together, and they'd originally been willing to _kill_ people to accomplish that. Sometimes it was crazy what genuine love could make a person want to do. 

"Well, if you guys are all okay then I'm gonna start heading home too." This police Lieutenant told the other ten stood there either next to him or behind him. "Is Markus gonna be alright?" 

"I'm just drained, I'll feel better in a few minutes." The RK200 himself said wearily in reassurance to the query. 

"Okay then. See you round, guys." Hank raised his left hand as a farewell after nodding in acknowledgment, and then he turned around to face the part of the woods which lead back to its entrance and began to take a walk towards this part. 

"See you, Hank." Eve called out to him as her own farewell, raising her hand in addition for the same purpose. To indicate that he'd heard her and therefore serving as a method of acknowledging it, he raised his left hand once again. 

"What about you, North?" Connor addressed this WR400. "Are you hiding out anywhere?" 

"Not really, no. I've been managing to evade CyberLife for the last week by moving around from place to place, mostly in these woods, but I don't have any specific hideout location." 

"You could stay _here_ if you want to." The RK800 told her. "That is, if it's alright with Andrea, Eve and Jenna." He turned to this trio to indicate who he was referring to. 

"That sounds okay with me. What about you two?" Andrea asked her pair of friends and fellow club members, who both responded with 'Yeah' or 'That's alright'. "So yeah. That's alright with all three of us, so if you want, you can stay here. There should be room for one more escaped android." 

For a couple of seconds, North appeared to show uncertainty about the offer, as her facial features wavered on the thin threshold between the answers of 'yes' and 'no', which was a physical reaction from her current thoughts: if she said yes, then she'd be able to stay in a safer location instead of being outside in the woods every night, although if she declined, then it'd mean these humans in front of her would be at less of a risk of death-by-CyberLife. 

"It's better than being all alone in the valley, isn't it?" Said Eve, picking up on her doubts from this facial expression. 

"She's right. Join us, North. You don't have to go solo anymore - the ten of us and Hank are all in this together." Andrea then walked over towards her and held out her right hand as a welcome. 

The electrokinetic female looked at her outstretched hand for a small lapse of time, and it was near to the end of this lapse when she realised that not only was what had just been said true, but also, in relation to the above-mentioned point that she was thinking about, Andrea, Arthur, Jenna and Eve were already at risk of death-by-CyberLife, rendering this point redundant.

And it was this conclusion she'd reached that made one corner of her mouth transform into an amicable smile and caused her left arm, which she discovered in this present moment that she could now move again after it was paralysed earlier, to stretch outwards so that her hand could reach Andrea's. As soon as these two limbs made contact with each other, North gave a small nod of her head and she shook Andrea's hand in her own. 

_**[This video below is the new ending credits song for the series from this episode onwards.]** _


	25. Episode 9: Slipping Under [Part 1/3]

_3:28 PM, June 23rd 2019_

In the small field that the AV club building was situated in, the atmosphere in general was tranquil, quiet and, overall, soothing to everyone in it. It was one of those Summer afternoons, the weather being a little bit warm but mostly neutral, when the most prominent noise that could be heard was the sharp but harmonious tweeting of birds; this was the kind of day that made you glad to be alive. 

While Markus and North were sat on the bottom step that lead to the building's door and talked quietly amongst each other in the background, and whilst Connor was stood against one of the building's exterior walls and was practising his coin tricks again, Ralph was busying himself by using his knife to slice open an apple that he'd found on one of the trees in the woods and then bringing this now cut open apple over to an area of the ground a few meters in front of the wall that Connor was stood against. Ralph put the slices down next to him before utilising his knife once again, this time for the purpose of digging a small hole in the ground.

"What are you doing, Ralph?" Alice walked over to him and asked this question, looking at him with genuine curiosity in her eyes. Kara was sat on one of the steps which was higher than the one North and Markus were perched on.

"Ralph is planting apple seeds, so that he can make a tree grow." He turned around for a moment to face her as he replied happily. "He likes plants; he wants to see what a tree of his own would look like." Ralph then turned back around to face what he was doing and he finished digging the hole, the blade of his knife now covered with dry dirt and a few strands of grass, and he proceeded to pull out the seeds from the apple and place them inside the hole, Alice watching him with wonder while Kara was also observing them from where she was sat. This blonde AX400 smiled softly at the sight of Ralph letting Alice fill the hole back in after the seeds were inside, the YK500 also smiling, and then Ralph used the flat side of his knife's blade to pat it down. The pair of zoolingualist androids made the already soothing and pleasant atmosphere even more so. 

"Heyo!" The sound of Jenna's voice was heard calling out to the six members of the group who were all gathered here, and they all turned to see where it was coming from - she was walking across the small field towards the club building at the same time as wheeling her bike alongside her. Eve and Andrea, who were both walking with her, were also doing the same, and Arthur was there, too, although he was the only one not wheeling a bike with him. It had been five and a half days since Jenna's hair had been dyed, so the previous night her hair had been in need of a wash and now, as a result, her hair was currently back to being completely mousy brown. Andrea's hair, meanwhile, was still bright red at the bottom and fading into its natural dark brown colour as it went upwards because of her dye being the variant that could last for months. 

"Good afternoon." Markus greeted her and the other three humans amiably. 

"What're Ralph and Alice doing?" Enquired Eve, watching them for a moment. 

"We're planting apple tree seeds into the ground." The latter mentioned one responded before standing up and facing them while wearing a smile on her face. 

"Oh, nice!" Commented Andrea. "Give that about a month and it should grow into a little sapling by then." She put her bike down against one of the building's exterior walls, and so did her 2 female companions. 

"This might sound like a strange thought, but sometimes I've wondered what it'd be like do be drunk." North suddenly said, making the others abruptly look at her in confusion. 

"Where did that come from?" The human who'd previously spoken before her quirked her eyebrows. 

"It's a thought that I've been having for a while now, just something that I've been contemplating." The WR400 answered. "A month and a half ago, back at the Tower, an experiment involving ethanol was conducted on one of the other androids there, and that android seemed to be fine except for a little bit of a loss of balance, which means alcohol isn't damaging to us. So after that I've been thinking about what full intoxication would feel like." 

"That's a good question; I've heard about how humans get drunk, and it's made me slightly curious, too." Connor added in agreement.

Markus had spent the last few seconds in which the others had been conferring to ponder on this matter, spontaneously feeling an idea materialise inside his head - it was a crazy one but also simultaneously brilliant, and if this series was a children's cartoon, then there'd be a lightbulb sparking into life above his head right now. 

"Why don't we actually get ourselves intoxicated to find out firsthand what it'd be like?" He suggested a couple of seconds after Connor had spoken. 

"Really? As in getting _drunk_?" Said Kara, her own eyebrows furrowing like Andrea's had done when North mentioned the subject in the first place. 

In response, Markus nodded his head. 

"It's definitely worth a try." The short-haired blonde's irises drifted off into space as she, too, began to mentally weigh up all the possibilities of this idea. 

"When are you thinking about doing it?" Eve asked, at the same time as trying very hard to stop herself from smirking at the mental image of drunk androids; it was just so... well, ludicrous, for lack of a better word. It was so unheard of before now, which was the only other way to describe it, that the thought of it was rendered even more humorous. 

"What about tonight?" Said North. "Maybe we could do it together a few hours from now." 

"Ralph likes that idea!" Ralph chimed in joyfully. 

"The only questions remaining are, if we're going ahead with this, who's going to buy the alcohol, and how much do we drink?" Connor put forward his own query

"For the second one, I suppose you should just drink until you feel like you're under the full effect, and to answer the first one, I think I'll be in charge of making the purchases for the alcohol. Because I'm the only human here who isn't underage." Answered Arthur. "When do you want me to go and buy some, then? My car's parked outside the entrance to the woods, so I can go right now if you want." 

"Is now okay? It's just so that we can try to do this sooner." North enquired to him. 

"That's fine, yes. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes at the most." He pulled his car keys out of the pocket of the jeans he was wearing, turned back around to face where he and the three girls had come from a minute ago and began to take an amble in that direction, although he soon stopped again and faced the others behind him to ask, by which time he'd only walked a couple of meters, "Oh, one last thing: how much of it do you want?" 

Kara looked around at the other androids, running a few quick mathematical calculations to answer this question, and while the processing power of her CPU worked quietly on this in the background, she asked Alice at the same time, "Do you want to try some alcohol, too? You don't have to get drunk like the rest of us, but you can try a little sip if you want." 

"No thank you, Kara." The youngest out of everyone there shook her head a little bit. 

"We'll be needing three or four cases if the other five of us want to make ourselves fully intoxicated." The android with the lightest coloured hair responded to Arthur's query after she'd finished her calculations. 

His eyelids went wide at this answer - that was a _lot_ of booze. And with a lot of booze comes a lot of suspicious glances in this shop unless you mention a valid explanation, and even then these glances don't fully dissipate. 

"Alright. I'll be back in a few minutes with those, then." The British male said, and then he turned back around and resumed his course, still making a partially futile attempt at registering everything that had already gone on in only about the last minute, and they hadn't even delved into the actual main part of the plan yet. 

"I'm back!" About twenty minutes later, this oldest one out of the quadrangle of humans turned the knob of the club building's door, and once it had swung open by a couple of degrees he used the tip of his right foot to push the door open the rest of the way while simultaneously bending over and picking up something that was next to him on the floor of the top step. "Could you help me with these please, Andrea?" He walked in, carrying in his arms what appeared to be a case of Gun Dog Gin. 

His girlfriend got up from where she'd been sitting, which was on the beanbag in the corner of the room, and she went over to assist him, taking the gin case off of him and almost immediately putting it down next to the beanbag, up against the wall. Arthur then went back outside the door, bent over to pick up something else and walked back in carrying another case, which Andrea took from him and put down against the wall next to the beanbag, and then this process repeated itself twice more. 

"I bought four boxes just in case like you said, and if you end up not using one of the cases then we're allowed to return it to the shop for a refund as long as the box hasn't been opened." He said, closing the door behind him once all four of the cases were inside. "Although when I was stood in the checkout line a couple of people were giving me funny looks and I ended up involuntarily saying out loud that the booze is for a party I'm hosting..." The brown haired accountant awkwardly diverted his gaze from the others. 

This last part caused all three of the girls to chuckle to themselves, with the other 6 also letting smiles surface on their faces, trying to suppress their own little laughs except for Ralph, who let his pass out of his lips. 

"So... should we... start now?" Said North slightly hesitantly as she truly did want to carry out this thing that they were about to try, but she didn't want to come across as forceful. "The drinking?" 

"I'm ready when you are." Replied Markus. 

"So am I." Added Connor. 

"Ralph is ready to start drinking, too!" 

"And me." Came Kara's answer. 

"Then let's do it." The WR400 with the strawberry-blonde red hair nodded her head once in confirmation, all the different possible outcomes of what they were about to do flooding into her head. It served as fuel for her sense of excitement. 

"Coming, just hold on a second..." Eve, who'd been sitting on the floor next to where the gin cases had been put down, swivelled herself around while still remaining in her seated position and reached for the box that was nearest to her. She pulled it closer to her and pulled the lid open, using one hand for holding the box on her lap and using the other to pass one of the bottles inside it to Alice, who then passed it along to Kara; each box contained six bottles, so by the time more of the bottles inside this first box had been passed along to Ralph, Connor, Markus and North as well, there was only one solitary bottle left inside this box, which made it much lighter and, as a result, significantly easier for Eve to put back down on the floor. 

After a couple of them had been fumbling to get the bottle caps off, the five containers of ethanol were all open, allowing the odour contained within to rush out just as quickly as a champagne cork. This odour briefly startled the five who were holding the bottles that it had emerged from, who'd never smelled anything so tangy or so herbal. 

"I'll go first." Said Markus, and after the others had given nods of acknowledgment, he raised the gin bottle which housed this strange-smelling pale yellow liquid up towards his mouth. For a moment or two, he simply looked down at the liquid, taking a second to brace himself just in case there were any negative side effects to come, and then he tipped the bottle upwards and drank a tiny fraction of the gin inside that came rushing to the open end. 

The taste was even more surprising than the smell - never before had he tasted any fluids which were this bittersweet, and it caused a chill to electrify his tongue as an aftermath. 

He lowered the bottle again and looked at it with his eyes wide and his lower jaw hanging open slightly. "Wow... it tastes... different, but I think I like it." 

"Then let's begin." Connor declared, raising his own bottle up to his lips and experiencing the same reaction after he himself had tasted the gin. This was followed by North doing the same thing. 

"This is _way_ too good to miss!" Jenna opined with a grin spreading across her face. She, Eve, Andrea and Arthur all sat down next to each other on the floor in front of the beanbag and watched intently as all of the androids here except for Alice started to consume the alcohol inside their bottles. 


	26. Episode 9: Slipping Under [Part 2/3]

"You were right, this _does_ taste good." Kara said to Markus a few minutes later as she took what Andrea, Arthur, Eve and Jenna estimated to be the sixth swig of gin out of the bottle she was holding (it was an estimate due to the fact that they'd partly lost count). The only android who wasn't drinking was Alice, and the other five were already over halfway through their first gin bottles; by now, these five were slowly beginning to lose their balance and their speech was ever so slightly slurred, so evidently alcohol did indeed have an effect on them.

"Agreed. I think I'm starting to like gin." North commented in agreement, her bottle appearing to be the one that was the most empty.

"Whenever I speak it's beginning to sometimes come out sounding... distorted, and I think I'm also feeling partially disoriented... is this what it's like to be intoxicated?" Connor asked, looking at the four humans with his eyes giving off a look of curiosity mixed with an external reaction to this dizzy feeling he'd just mentioned. 

"I only ever got drunk once, at a New Years' Eve party that my accountancy office hosted a few years ago, but I believe it is, yes. You're probably going to feel different effects later on when you continue though, I don't fully know about android physiology." Arthur replied to him. 

"The hydrogen sulphide in the artificially-engineered antibodies contained in our bodies does break down the molecules of foreign fluids and evaporates those fluids completely, like Connor said on Tuesday night, but it seems that ethanol corrupts our internal systems in some way, which causes the dizziness and speech distortion that he also just mentioned." Said Markus. 

"Like that other android who North said had an ethanol experiment conducted on them." Added Ralph. 

"Exactly." 

"Mine's empty now... could you pass me another one, please?" This WR400 looked down at her bottle, which was now completely devoid of any contents, and put it down next to her in a bit of a feeble manner. 

"Coming." Said Jenna, who then swivelled around and reached inside the already open Gun Dog Gin case for another bottle, turning back around and passing it along to North via Eve and Arthur. 

"How much longer until five?" Andrea queried to her three companions sat around her, to which Arthur peered down at the watch on his left wrist and responded with, 

"About an hour." This question was asked because all three of the girls' deadline times for when they needed to be home that day was 5 PM. 

"I'm starting to wish I'd brought a box of popcorn or something with me today." The brunette chuckled discretely to herself through the hand she'd placed over the lower half of her mouth in an attempt to conceal it. "Because I have a feeling this is probably gonna start getting crazy..." 

"You might be right there." Eve nodded her head and smiled in amusement. 

_Fifty-five minutes later..._

_**[Background score:]** _

"You... you- you're the best, you know why?" North slurred to Markus whilst grinning and looking like she was about to fall flat on her face at any moment. She was using one of her hands to support her weight as she was leaning towards him from where she was sat in one of the desk chairs. "Because you're just so _great_ at resisting these effects of being drunk! _How_ are you doing this?" 

"But I'm not. I'm not great at it, look at me." The RK200 said, his own grin spreading across his features as he held up his 3rd gin bottle - it was only a little fraction over being empty. "I'm just as drunk as you!" He struggled to speak through the laughter that was emerging from his lips. 

"No you're not, I'm more intoxicated!" 

"I think... I think I'm actually the one who's more drunk." 

"No I am!" The female with the brown eyes was also beginning to burst into laughter. 

"Let's say you're both just as drunk as each other." Kara interjected before this continuous cycle of bantering could keep on going until the end of time itself. She'd only consumed half as much gin as Markus and North, therefore meaning that as a result she wasn't showing any of the same effects as them, and Connor and Ralph had drank about 15% less than the aforementioned duo. 

"Yep, you were right earlier: things have gotten a little bit crazier." Jenna said, turning her head to look at Andrea. 

" _YEEHAW!_ " Everyone almost leapt out of their skins when Connor yelled this at nearly the top volume his voicebox would allow after he took another swig from his still mostly full third bottle. 

"What was that all about...?" Eve enquired in a partially quiet volume, not fully sure whether to be amused or bewildered. 

"I don't completely know, I just did some research one time and I found out that people used to use that word a lot, especially in the United States, and people still sometimes use it to this day. So I wanted to say it too." The telekinetic male's voice was heavily slurred and it wavered between different pitches in a couple of places, like those of North and Markus. 

"Ralph likes that word - it's a fun word!" Ralph started to chuckle, in addition. "Yeehaw!" He let himself explode into full laughter, which North soon ended up joining in with before Connor did as well, and then so did Markus. 

"Are you sure this lot are just drunk and not _high_?" Andrea turned to Arthur. 

"Come to think of it, I don't really think I _am_ sure." Her boyfriend shook his head fractionally in reply. 

After he'd said this, Kara began to laugh with the other four, although hers wasn't quite as loud, and soon she was bent over in this half suppressed laughter of hers; it was followed up by Alice's mouth forming into a smile that took a grand total of no time to transform into a little laugh.

"Not you two as well!" The middle born one out of the three girls said jokingly, while next to her, Arthur placed his forehead into one of his hands and concealed the fact that he was stopping his own chuckle from escaping as all six of the androids continued to laugh at varying degrees.

_Three minutes later..._

"See you later!" Andrea called out through the open club building door as she, Arthur, Eve and Jenna were stood outside, about to start heading back to their homes, in the full reach of the soft late afternoon light. The sun wasn't as high in the sky as it was around midday, so the heat emanating from this light wasn't as warm anymore, and was still so but only by a fraction - the source of the heat and the light was setting, beginning to slowly and sneakily edge closer towards the horizon piece by piece like a chameleon which alternates between camouflaging itself and making a mad dash to safety. 

"Byyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeee!~" Ralph exclaimed back to them as he staggered over to the door and held the handle on the other side, grinning and giving the four a little wave of his left hand as a farewell before he tried to pull the door shut, but he only managed to pull it halfway when he turned around for some reason, probably under the impression that he'd already completely closed it, and through the opening, he could be seen suddenly falling over onto the floor, flat on his face. 

"You think that lot are going to be alright? As in they won't end up getting into any trouble?" Arthur asked the other three in a slightly worried manner after fully pushing the door closed. 

"Yeah, they'll be fine! What's the worst that could happen?" The darkest haired one out of the girls, out of all four of them, for that matter, answered.

"I don't know, but you might end up jinxing that." He replied, to which she let out a small chuckle in response. 

"Well, if their physiology when it comes to booze is anything like humans, then I do _**not**_ wanna be them in the morning - especially North or Markus." Jenna smiled and was laughing herself as she finished this sentence. They'd just reached the bottom of the steps, and the girls retrieved their bikes from the rack whilst Arthur took his car keys out of one of his jeans' back pockets.


	27. Episode 9: Slipping Under [Part 3/3]

_Dawn the next day..._

The time was 9:36 AM when one of the six androids asleep inside the club building at last began to stir; this one was Markus, whose only movements so far in these last few seconds had consisted entirely of his eyelids opening themselves, albeit with a struggle, and even after he was now fully conscious again he still felt as if his eyes wanted to immediately close themselves back up. He'd only just woken up about five seconds ago and he was already feeling as if the energy created from the Thirium in his body, pumping itself to and around his biocomponents, was drained. 

He opened his mouth by a little fraction, as he also felt like he was about to groan in reaction to this sensation that he'd never experienced before until now, but all that came out was a noise which was _like_ a groan but wasn't, because the above-mentioned feeling of being drained of energy was stopping him from even making audible sounds, let alone physically moving. So as a result, the only noise that he was able to emit was a much softer and significantly more quiet version of what he'd had in mind.   
Upon his consciousness fully returning, he found out that he was laid down flat on the floor on his front, with his left arm next to him and his right one splayed out, his right hand holding a mostly empty Gun Dog Gin bottle. 

Markus eventually managed to fight back against the drained feeling for long enough to roll over onto his back, putting down the bottle upright at arm's length away before getting past the barrier in front of being able to move his head - he looked around him and saw his five fellow CyberLife escapees scattered around the room, all sleeping on their backs, fronts or on their sides, with Alice snuggled up close to Kara, whose arms were around the YK500 in return with her gin bottle, stood upright, off to the side. 

The pyrokinetic RK200's attention was caught when he saw, out of the corner of his left eye - the green one - North slowly beginning to stir from her sleep, or standby mode as it was referred to when it came to androids, and moving from her back onto her side at the same time as holding her own gin bottle in her left hand. 

She ended up turning onto the side which was facing Markus, and because of this, she immediately noticed him once she'd finished moving. The WR400 smiled weakly upon seeing him, her bottle which was now very nearly empty hanging feebly only half an inch above the floor in the grip of her fingers as she murmured to him, "Morning..." 

"Good morning, North." He said in reply, at the same quiet volume, instantly experiencing a sudden throbbing pain in the area around his shoulders that caused him to let out another groan, this one fortunately being one which released actual sound.

"What's wrong?" She asked him when she saw him emit the groan as well as his facial features tense up.

"I don't fully know, I just suddenly felt some kind of pain around my shoulders."

"I felt it too a second ago, only for a moment." Said North. "Do you think that's our bodies' reactions to being drunk last night? Arthur told us about how a hangover for a human involves headaches, vomiting and stomach pain, so these shoulder aches might be our equivalent of it."

"You're probably right; we don't have digestive tracts, so that rules out stomach pain, and our physiology is significantly different in other respects, too."

"What's going on?" Their conversation was interrupted as Kara's voice enquired this, both of their heads turning to look as she slowly rose up from the floor and into a seated position like them. Her eyes were still half closed from the same feeling of tiredness (possibly as another effect of an android hangover) that they were on the receiving end of.

"We were talking about these symptoms we're experiencing as a result of being intoxicated last night." Markus responded. "It turns out that we _can_ feel effects of it afterwards." 

"It's shoulder aches, with a little bit of dizziness. And are you feeling drained, too?" North queried to the male who'd previously spoken. 

"I am - that must be another symptom. How much did you two drink?" 

"This is my third bottle." Kara picked up the object that had been placed at the side and held it up to show the pair that it was a little fraction over still being half full. 

"I think... I'm the winner..." The female with the darker eyes, the one who'd mentioned this whole idea about getting drunk in the first place, held up her hand which was clutching her own bottle and chuckled, because this one only had about 30% of the gin left inside it and on the floor around her was three other completely dead bottles, with her motioning towards this with her other hand. Only one of them was stood upright. 

Both of the two other androids' eyes widened slightly at this sight. 

"I don't think this was a competition..." The blonde with the pixie cut couldn't help but smile as she said this in reply. 

North simply shrugged while simultaneously displaying the same smile, prompting the same facial reaction from Markus. "What about you?" She addressed the latter. "How much did _you_ drink?" 

"I got to my fourth like you did." Sure enough, there were three bottles around him on the floor, none of them being upright, although the one he was currently holding was more full than North's. "But it seems you _did_ drink the most out of us all." 

Kara had spent the last few seconds looking around the room, which was half in darkness thanks to it being 9:40 in the morning and therefore the sun was still continuing its initial boot up procedure of the day, and she noticed that the empty bottles around them and the couple of now empty boxes they came in were littering up the room, especially the bottles that were laid over on their sides, because a couple of these ones had a few drops of their contents, however meagre in quantity these contents were, trickling out of the open tops and onto the floor. 

"I'll go and get some paper towels from that bathroom stall next to this building, so that we can clean all this up." She told the pair, laughing quietly to herself at the sight of Ralph, Alice and Connor still unconscious on the floor, with Connor on his back and Ralph laid on his face. 

"Okay." North acknowledged, and with that, Kara got up from where she was sitting, albeit with a little bit of a wobble on her feet, and she walked over towards the door. 

"This was fun." Markus told the WR400 in front of him with a twinkle in both of his eyes. "I'm actually glad you came up with this idea; it's given us a chance to learn more about our physiology." 

"And not to mention the fact that, like you also said, it was an entertaining thing to do." Her own eyes were displaying the same current positive mindset, while at the same time a few feet away Kara was pushing the door open, allowing some of the faint morning sunlight from outside to come flooding in for a second or two before she'd walked out on her way to the previously mentioned bathroom stall attached to the side of the building and closed the door again behind her. 

Both of the points they'd put forward were true - their experience in getting drunk was rather fun, and has caused some pretty humorous moments, but in addition, it was sort of like they'd carried out their own experiment as a group, and unlike any other experiment they'd been on the receiving end of before, this one didn't involve restraints or armed guards and was a _lot_ more casual. It was one that they willingly went ahead with. 

"I think I can remember Connor shouting 'yeehaw'..." Markus's eyebrows furrowed at this peculiar memory, which made North beam and laugh softly as she, too, abruptly remembered this same event taking place. 

"I've got to do more research on that word, it really does sound like a funny one." She said, making the one with the two differently coloured eyes smile at seeing her amused like this. 

It was only second seconds later when they heard the door opening again, this time from the outside, revealing Kara to be standing there at the top of the steps on the other side. The noise created by the opening of the door was at a relatively low volume, which was deliberate so as to not awaken Connor, Ralph and Alice, because she knew that androids in standby mode weren't as susceptible to auditory stimuli as sleeping humans were, but she nonetheless wanted to let them sleep for a little bit longer until they woke up themselves. When she pulled the door open, she was shown to be holding about a dozen paper towels in her other hand. 

"We can probably put the empty bottles back into the boxes they came in so that they're out of the way, and we can group the ones with alcohol still inside together next to the boxes." Said Kara as she stepped inside and once again closed the door, showing a small smile on her features. "Let's get this room tidied up." 


	28. Episode 10: Dark Before the Dawn [Part 1/3]

_6:28 PM, June 29th 2019_

"Okay, so I'll see you both later then." Inside the front porch of her house, Andrea turned around from just facing the front door and she said this to her mother, who was stood there in the porch's doorway holding this door open.

"Do you have everything?" Françoise Vanderpen asked her to double check.

"Yeah. And I just got a text from Eve saying her and Jen are on the way there, too, and one from Arthur saying the same thing."

"Okay then; see you tomorrow morning at around 10:30. Love you."

"See you, sweetheart." Andrea's father, stood next to the stairs a few feet behind the door to the porch, added.

"Bye, love you both. I'll text you when I get there." And with that, the half British-half French brunette gave them a little wave of her hand as a goodbye and she then opened the front door and stepped outside, closing it behind her.

Despite it being the middle of the Summer, the open air outside was balancing on the narrow line between being cold and being not warm as such but, for lack of a better word, intermediate, as expected for living in Britain. A gust of wind blew through the area she was in, at first only being a gentle one but very soon picking up its magnitude and turning it into a stronger one, although it passed as quickly as it had come; this gust of wind added to the ambient melody of the vehicles which were barrelling down the motorway off in the distance, creating an overall atmosphere of calmness and peace despite it being birthed from noise and the din of human activity.

Andrea grabbed her bike from off to the side in front of the outer wall of the house, mounted it and made her way down the street on which her house resided, clutching a plastic carrier bag in her right hand while carrying a rucksack on her back, with both sides of the pavement being mostly quiet except for one or two people walking down the street, heading for their own destinations, and the nearly undetectable sounds of our green eyed protagonist's bike wheels on the pavement.   
Carefully, with one hand, she opened up the the home screen of her phone, proceeding to enter the texts section and then go into the texting room between her and Eve, using her thumb to do the work whilst she kept to the inner edge of the pavement so as to not get in anyone's way and she used the corner of her eye to watch out for anything happening in her surroundings that she might miss because of using her phone.

Meanwhile, Jenna was on her own bike with Eve alongside her, doing the same, and on that current evening, all three of the girls once again had the same destination: the AV club building.  
It was only a few seconds later, before which the pair had been engaged in amicable chatter, when Eve's phone vibrated along with producing the audible sound of vibration at the same time - an indication of a text message which had just arrived.

"Hold on a second, Jen." She said, to which her bespectacled companion halted her bike and both of them went over to the inner side of the pavement they were on before Eve dismounted hers. After this, she took her phone out of the pocket of the coat she was wearing and opened up the flap on the front, turning on the home screen and entering into the texts section.  
"I've just got a text from Andrea: she says she's on the way now."

"Okay." Jenna acknowledged with an ever so slight nod of her head. "By the way, do you think when we get there Markus and the others will have decided to drink the spare gin bottles today that Arthur bought for them last Sunday? If there's any spare gin bottles _left_ , that is." She asked, adding a small chuckle at the end of her last sentence.

"I don't know, probably." The frizzy-haired blonde laughed partially in addition. "I mean they did seem to be very drunk that afternoon, so maybe North convinced them to go all-out with it. And who knows, we might even arrive to find them _actually drunk_ from those spare bottles."

As she remounted her bike, this last part prompted another little bit of a giggle from her mousy haired friend, whose hair had once again been dyed blue in one big strand at the front on the right side three nights ago. 

Alice, sat outside the club building a few minutes later on from this, was on the grass with Kara also sat next to her, along with Markus perched on the top step in front of the building's door and staring out into the distance in thought.

For the last few seconds, a little bird had been pottering around on the ground near to Kara and Alice - specifically, it was a magpie - and at the present moment it hopped a little bit closer to the pair, momentarily startling them both. Although I place emphasis on the word 'momentarily', because it only took a couple of seconds before Alice looked down at it, the bird looking back up at her and letting out a tiny chirp while tilting its head fractionally to the side.  
Alice, whose power was zoolingualism, like Ralph's, reached her hand downwards towards the magpie and spoke to it with her ability,  
 _'Hello. You're hungry, aren't you? I'm sorry, I don't have anything.'_  
The way her and Ralph's zoolingualism worked was that they'd say the words they wanted to communicate to the animal mentally - inside a section of their CPU which was responsible for housing an android's given power, sort of the same way in which a human's personality is housed in a part of their brain - and when the animal communicated back to them, this part of their CPU interpreted the reply as electronic signals which only that android would ever be able to understand.

Anyway, getting back to the present moment, the magpie gave a lively chirp back to Alice in response,  
 _'It's alright, young one; I understand. You seem to be different to the other people I've encountered before, almost otherworldly, in some way.'_

 _'I'm an android.'_ The YK500 spoke to it again. _'But it's okay, you don't have to be afraid of me.'_ She then, slowly and with a smidge of hesitation, reached one of her hands downwards slightly towards the bird, who let out another chirp before, deciding to trust this little creature apparently called an android, it hopped into the index and middle fingers of her outstretched hand. It let her gently use her other hand to stroke the top of its head, briefly closing its eyes in pleasure while Kara watched what was going on with a blend of wonder and soft happiness, and then, about ten seconds later, Alice removed her left hand from the magpie's head and it took off again after giving her one final chirp as a farewell.   
For another few seconds, both of the previously mentioned female androids watched as the long-tailed bird elegantly glided across the sky above them, its wings proceeding to stretch out and its white chest contrasting significantly with the black head and the faded dark blue wings, although these wings were only dark blue until a bit over halfway across, when their colour was suddenly white until the tips. It eventually fluttered away off into the distance behind them, vanishing into the faraway trees almost as if it had never even been there in front of them in the first place - Markus saw this as he was still gazing out into space, noticing that these different juxtaposing colours were very artistic. He'd seen a magpie or two from a distance before today, but he'd never witnessed any of them in flight like this, showing off their array of white and black hues like an angel of darkness. It was truly something to be admired. 

The attention of the three sat outside was suddenly drawn to the area of the surrounding trees which was where the gravel path stretched out of, because they heard the sound, gradually increasing in volume, of bike wheels being driven across this gravel, and with the increase of its volume came the sight of three familiar females walking towards the club building, wheeling their bikes alongside them. 

"Hi everyone~." Andrea called out when she, Jenna and Eve had reached the open space surrounding the building, finally emerging from the depths of the trees.   
  


"So why've you've come with so much baggage today?" North enquired about a minute later, by which time the trio of girls were now inside the club building along with her, Markus, Connor, Alice, Ralph and Kara. She was asking this question because the trinity were indeed carrying not only their backpacks as usual, but additionally white plastic carrier bags that seemed to be nearly full to bursting with whatever they were currently containing. "You only ever bring either backpacks or handbags." 

"I'm glad you asked that; it's because before, we've only been here for a few hours, and this evening we're going to be staying for a bit longer." Responded Jenna, a small smile spreading across the lower half of her face. 

"About a week ago we started making plans to come here tonight for a sleepover." Eve, with the same expression, elaborated on the youngest human's reply.

The six CyberLife escapees around them showed their evident confusion at this last word that the middle-born one out of the trio had said via a couple of them, specifically Connor, Markus and Kara, tilting their heads slightly and all of them furrowing their eyebrows to this same small degree. They were unfamiliar with this term, so it sparked the dual confusion and curiosity within them. 

"To sum it up, a sleepover is when people get together one evening and sleep in that same place together for the night." The blonde who'd previously spoken explained, picking up on them not understanding the definition behind what she'd told them. 

"And the reason for why we haven't told any of you guys until now is because we wanted it to be a surprise - a pleasant one." Andrea added. 

"I see. This sounds intriguing; we've been spending every night for nearly the last two weeks together here, but it'll be interesting to see what one of these 'sleepovers' that humans organise is like." Connor nodded his head in understanding. "What do they usually entail?" 

Just as Andrea opened her mouth to answer his question, she was interrupted before she could say anything by the sound of the door opening from the outside, with a certain brown-haired male walking in through it, looking as if a few seconds ago he'd been not running as such but moving at a hurried pace, because he appeared to be breathing fractionally more quickly than normal and his eyes were wide, but not overly so. 

"Hi Arthur." Jenna greeted this male cordially. 

"Evening, everyone. Sorry I'm late, what did I miss?" He also seemed to be holding a carrier bag each in both of his hands, which he put down on the floor in the nearest corner before he sat down next to where he'd placed them.

"Andrea was about to tell Connor about what people do at sleepovers." Eve informed.

"I think it varies, because people sometimes choose to do different things to others, but there are some parts that are basically traditional for nearly every one, and I've got some of those traditional ones lined up for ours tonight." The faded half red brunette beamed with pride, as it was her who'd organised this entire thing in the first place. 

"Before we start, though, should we get our stuff out?" The only one in the entire room who was wearing glasses queried. 

"Yeah, we probably should." The green eyed female answered, turning around and then zipping open her own rucksack which she'd set down behind her; she emptied out the contents within, one by one, which appeared to begin with a small box of what was soon identified as Pocky sticks. 

"What've you brought?" Arthur asked his girlfriend. 

Once she'd fully finished pulling out the stuff that had, until now, been inside her bag, she replied with, "A bag of Doritos, chocolate M&Ms, Pocky sticks and something that Connor'll probably recognise." In one of her hands, she held up a multipack with the word 'Crunchie' written on it in big, bold red lettering.

"How did you manage to get your parents to let you bring all that?" The human male said with a slight chuckle near to the end of his sentence. 

"I wanted to bring enough to go round for everyone, but obviously I didn't tell them that and I also obviously didn't tell them about you 6 so I just said I wanted to bring this amount of stuff so that me, you, Eve and Jen would have more than one choice." 

"I've brought my own stuff too, as promised." The penultimately mentioned female spoke up, as she'd just spent the last few seconds unzipping and emptying her own backpack. Now, stood near to the edge of the desk, were a few cans of Diet Coke, 2 bottles of cream soda and also a couple of bottles of Buxton water.

"I take it you gave your own parents the same explanation?" Andrea motioned a little bit with one of her hands at these objects, smiling marginally as another way of emitting a chuckle. 

"Not _exactly_ what you said, but along those general lines, yeah." 

"I've also brought the film selection as we agreed." Said Jenna, using both of her hands to hold up three DVD boxes which she'd brought with her. "It's decision time for which one we want to watch first: Cars 2, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, or Night at the Museum?"

Everyone's expressions transformed into ones of trying to choose out of these 3 movies, with their eyebrows quirked and a couple of them having pursed lips in addition - as well as this, Ralph and Connor's LEDs were yellow and flickering on and off in thought thanks to the same cause.


	29. Episode 10: Dark Before the Dawn [Part 2/3]

The ten people currently populating the inside of the AV club building were all sat either on the beanbag, in the desk chairs, on the floor or, in the case of the four humans, on top of the sleeping bags which they'd laid out against one of the room's walls. It was now about 8:37 PM, and these aforementioned ten heroes watched the screen of the computer on the desk in front of them as it displayed the beginning of Night at the Museum's end credits.

"So then, everyone's thoughts?" Jenna said as perched herself into a slightly more upright position than the one she'd been sat in until now. 

"I liked it." Opined Alice, sat in Kara's lap next to this girl with the mousy-dyed-partly-blue hair. "Some parts were really funny." The YK500 felt her mouth form into a small smile upon recalling just a few of the comedic moments during the film.

"They were. I liked the parts with those characters called Octavius and Jedediah." Kara herself stated in agreement along with her own slowly growing beam. 

"Yeah. Owen Wilson's great, honestly." Andrea put her arms behind her head in a relaxed position. "He's the man who portrayed Jedediah." She explained upon realising that despite being able to research the name, the six androids wouldn't know straight away about him - they knew about the way movies, shows and games worked, in which people acted out their characters, though.

"I have to agree; that was enjoyable." Added Markus, nodding his head a little bit. 

"I'll go and get the disc then." Said the youngest human. She then got up from her sleeping bag, manoeuvred around the feet of the people sat around her and approached the desk, where she reached for the eject button on the computer's attached DVD drive. 

"What do we do now?" Ralph asked at the same time as moving into an upright position like she did, specifically with his legs crossed and his hands resting on the knees of those legs, because he was one of those who were sat on the floor. 

"I don't fully know..." Responded Eve with her lips fractionally pursed once again, like over an hour and a half ago when the group was trying to work out which film to watch first. "...Ooh wait! I think I know something good we can do!" She perked up thanks to the thought that was manifesting itself in her mind right now. "I've heard of a sleepover game, one of the traditional ones, called the M&M challenge: it's where you put some M&Ms into a bowl, and then we all have to take it in turns to pick up two M&Ms out of the bowl - we're supposed to do it without looking, so they'll basically be picked at random - and if they're not both the same colour as each other then you're not allowed to chew them and you have to hold them in your mouth until, on one of your other turns, you end up picking two more that are the same colour as each other. One of the snacks Andrea brought tonight is a pack of M&Ms, so a few seconds ago I just thought, why not?" 

"That sounds like a good idea." Said North. By this time, Jenna had retrieved the Night at the Museum disc and she was now sat back on top of her sleeping bag with the DVD box next to her. 

"It sounds fun!" Ralph added, the excited and giddy part of his personality coming into play. 

"They're right here, next to my bag. Just hold on a second while I get them." Said Andrea, and she leaned over to the right, reached out her hand which was nearest to her backpack and grabbed hold of the M&M packet; luckily, it had been spared so far, because the only things the group of ten had during the movie were a few Doritos and some of Eve's cream soda. 

_**[Background score:]** _

And so, true to their word that it was indeed a good idea, Ralph and North were the ones who got to open the packet and place it in the middle of everyone, allowing them all to be able to reach it. There wasn't really anything suitable there to pour the contents into, so that was the reason behind why they decided to just keep it inside the packet it came in. 

"Who's going to have the first turn?" Asked Connor. 

"People usually start with one selected person and then the turns go around and circle back to that first person and so on, but why don't we do things a little bit differently, for the fun of it, and do it in alphabetical order of our names?" Arthur answered his question. 

"That means you get to go first, Alice." Markus told the youngest out of the androids there, the youngest out of _everyone_ there for that matter, whose dark brown eyes lit up ever so slightly when this was said.

She looked up behind her at the ever-reassuring sight of Kara's face, and the AX400 gave Alice a soft little nod of encouragement, as if to say in unspoken words, _Go ahead, it's alright_. Thanks to this assurance, Alice then, still tentatively, leaned forwards by a few degrees and she closed her eyes, proceeding to let her left hand reach down into the M&M packet and guide itself onto two randomly chosen ones like the rules of the game said. She had a layout of the entire room inside her head, but her hand was entirely in charge of the M&Ms, because the only things the layout showed was the dimensions of the actual room and where the furniture was. It was only about four seconds after she'd reached into the packet, her eyes still closed, when her hand re-emerged with two M&Ms being held in it, and Alice followed the next step of the game's rules by, still a tad hesitantly, putting these two M&Ms into her mouth and it was only then when she opened her eyes again. 

"What colour are they?" She asked the others once she could see her surroundings without a layout. 

"Sorry Alice, they're not the same colour. One of them's red and the other's brown." Eve informed her with a slight, soft smirk of amusement.

"So I need to hold these in my mouth until I get two of the same colour on my next turn?" Alice enquired to her, her own tiny smirk also materialising on her features. 

"Yep." 

"My turn." Andrea, whose turn it now was because of her boyfriend's idea to do it in alphabetical order. She did the same: shutting her eyes and allowing her hand to guide itself into the M&M packet, and then closed her fingers around a pair of them, putting them in her mouth and reopening her eyelids. "What colours are mine?" She spoke through holding them inside her mouth. 

"Both of them are yellow." Connor told her. 

"Yes!" The green eyed seventeen year old cheered and happily commanded her teeth to crash down onto the M&Ms in her mouth. 

"How do we decide who's won the game?" Enquired North.

"Maybe... the first one who chews three or more pairs of M&Ms is the winner?" Suggested Jenna after taking a second or two to come up with a good answer. 

"Fair enough." Markus stated. 

"Now it looks like it's my turn." Said Arthur, closing both of his own eyes.   
  


"I did it, I win!" A rough estimate of five minutes or so later, Kara declared this to the others as she chewed on two pairs of M&Ms. Before this, she'd managed to pick a pair which were both the same colour as each other, although on her second turn she'd ran into ones that were different, and it was only on this third turn of hers when she finally seized victory in the game. 

"Congrats! How did everyone else do?" Said Eve. 

"I think I've managed to get to my third pair, they're different colours so I've been spending the last few seconds sat here with six M&Ms in my mouth." Arthur chuckled, deciding that now Kara had won the game and therefore it was over, his reason for continuing to just keep them inside his mouth had been rendered redundant, so at this present moment he bit his teeth down onto them. 

"I got the same." Ralph added; he followed suit with the decision Arthur had just reached. 

"My first pair were the same colours, but my next six weren't." Said Markus. 

"And now that's done, a second ago I remembered another thing that's lined up for sleepovers." Jenna allowed herself to show a grin that was simultaneously jocular and sly, putting her head in one of her hands with the elbow connected to that hand resting on her knee and slowly turning her irises to focus on Andrea and Arthur. 

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking are you, Jen?" Her middle born friend next to her quirked her eyebrows and didn't stop herself from displaying her own smile similar in nature. 

"I am: time for seven minutes in heaven!" 

"Oh boy..." Andrea let out a mini sigh, although she found herself involuntarily bursting out into giggles and, in addition, she found puddles of blush vaguely creeping onto her cheeks. Her boyfriend experienced the same reaction, with the solitary difference being that he didn't giggle as such and his little laughs were more quiet, but only by a very tiny degree. This was causing the six androids to become confused again, wondering what exactly this 'seven minutes in heaven' was and why Arthur and the oldest out of the trio of girls were reacting this way to Jenna suggesting it. 


	30. Episode 10: Dark Before the Dawn [Part 3/3]

"In you go, you two!" Jenna playfully ushered two of her friends over towards the supply cupboard which was in the corner of the AV club room; this supply cupboard was the same one that Markus and Connor had used a week and a half ago to change into human clothing before going into the city. As mentioned before, right now Connor was still back in his android uniform afterwards simply because he liked it, and Markus had continued to wear his own human outfit. At this current moment, Markus was indeed wearing his grey zip-up turtleneck but with his long tan coat being folded up neatly off at the side.

"Alright, alright, we're going. You don't have to rush us, Jen." Responded Andrea lightheartedly.

"And remember, you both have to stay in there for seven minutes." Eve reminded them, experiencing the same mood as her companions.

"Yeah, we got that. The title of the game's pretty obvious." The oldest of the trinity of females was still being jocular when she said this.

"See you all in seven minutes then." Arthur stepped forwards and opened the cupboard's door, stepping out of the way so as to allow the brunette to get in first. He then followed suit once she'd managed to squeeze herself inside, and he clenched his teeth as he had to manoeuvre into a funny position, leaning against the interior of the wall on the left hand side - the cupboard was just as tall inside as the rest of the club room, but in terms of width and length it was only about three-by-three in feet.

"Bye-byeeeee~." The middle-born blonde placed her hands onto the cupboard's door and closed it once both Arthur and Andrea were fully inside, this door producing a small _click_ sound when it returned to the frame that it came out from.

"So, you never really told us, what's this 'seven minutes in heaven' game?" Kara spoke up.

"It's where two people are chosen to go into a cupboard, wardrobe or some other small, dark place, and they have to stay there for seven minutes. The two people usually spend that time kissing, or just talking to each other in private." Explained Jenna.

"It's not a _rule_ or anything, but most of the time the two are picked because they're a couple, like that pair." Eve motioned with her thumb in the direction of the cupboard containing the other duo of humans. She and the youngest out of the humans were now both sat down on top of their sleeping bags once again and leaning back against the pillows placed at the head of these aforementioned duvets.

"Who both like each other, and view the other person as the most important friend of them all?" Said Connor.

"Exactly." The girl with the glasses nodded her head.

"Can I please be one of the two that go next?" Markus requested politely.

"That should be fine. Are you okay with that, Eve?"

"Yeah, that's okay." Her friend answered in confirmation. "We've just got to wait about seven minutes for your turn to come."

"This is a question I'm asking purely because I'm just wondering out of curiosity, but if you absolutely had to pick anyone in this room to do your turn with, like if the whole world was in danger and the only way to save it was to play seven minutes in heaven, then who would you choose?" Jenna queried.

The RK200, upon being asked this question, looked around at everyone else in this room so as to see what his options were, before a couple of seconds later his eyes, both the green one and the blue one, came to rest on one female in particular, and his mind was immediately made up, although now the only challenge he faced was trying to come up with a way to give his answer without being at risk of embarrassing himself.

"I think... I might choose North." He decided that the best way to accomplish this above mentioned objective was to just get it over with and not cover up his words in any way.

The WR400 with the side-braided hair found herself a little bit surprised for a moment at his reply to Jen's question, which was because there was no other way to put it than it simply caught her off guard, but she did have to admit to herself that out of everyone there, he would've been her choice for who to play the seven minutes in heaven game with, because he was the one who she'd known for the longest and had the closest friendship with. And during the android breakout two and a half weeks ago, she'd been dishing out her own badassery in the fight against the CyberLife guards alongside him but she felt genuinely safe around him; she sort of felt that by Markus being there with her in dangerous situations like that and the battle against the Tracies a little bit over a week ago, she would automatically be rendered safe from whatever came their way.

"It looks like you and Markus are going to have the next turn, then." Eve said to North, who replied by nodding in acknowledgement.

"Hi again." Andrea greeted everyone cheerfully 6 minutes later, when she and her boyfriend were emerging from the supply cupboard whose door had been opened a couple of seconds ago from the outside by Ralph.

"Hello Andrea, Arthur." The WR600 said happily in response.

"So, what did you pair do in there...?" Jenna leaned in closer to their direction while still remaining in a seated position.

The same blush that had creeped onto his girlfriend's face a few minutes earlier was slowly beginning to claw at Arthur's own cheeks as, occasionally flicking his eyes down at the ground, he answered with, "Well, basically the only things we did inside the cupboard were chatting about random topics, along with some hugging and... a little bit of kissing and a couple of times we spooned..."

"Oh Artie I love you, Artie I do..." Eve started to sing jokingly, using the same song that she and the younger girl had sung to mock Andrea in this same friendly way on Tuesday 11th, the fateful evening.

"Don't you start!" Exclaimed the darkest-haired one out of the 4 humans herself, which made Jen grin and Eve laugh to herself.

"Now it's time for Markus and North's turn." Connor told them.

"We decided on them going next while you two were in there." The latter-mentioned blonde brought Arthur and Andrea up to speed.

And then pretty much the same process repeated itself: Ralph held the door open whilst North and Markus squished themselves inside the cupboard, this time proving to be more difficult as they were taller than the aforementioned couple whose turn it had been previously, but, albeit eventually, the duo managed to narrowly get inside before Ralph closed the door again once they were in. The cupboard was _really_ only suited to hold one person.

For a few silent moments, the pair sat together in silence, neither of them completely sure what to say, and shuffled around ever so slightly in order to become more comfortable in the enclosed space - this seemed to be only partially successful.

"So, why did you choose me to do your turn with?" North finally broke the silence.

"I think it's mostly just because you're the one who I know the best, as my friendship with you is closer than the ones I have with the others." He replied, then letting another ten seconds of silence envelope them again before he added, "And to tell the truth, it's also partly because I like you."

"What do you mean?" She looked straight up into his eyes.

"Like how Connor described it a few minutes ago: when someone views another person as the most important friend out of them all. What I'm trying to say is, the true reason behind why I asked for my turn to be next and why I chose you is because I really care about you, North. I can't fully explain it, but it's in a different way than I care about the others, and it just... _feels_ different."

The female still didn't break away from the gaze of his two differently coloured eyes, maintaining contact with them via her own brown ones. "How long have you had this different feeling for?"

"I don't completely know, it was just a little thought that I'd been having in the back of my mind at first, during the time when we were still in the CyberLife Tower, but I suppose it became more of a serious feeling that I was thinking about a lot more often over a week ago, on that day when we reunited and we fought against Traci and Tracy."

"Well, to be honest, I'm not fully sure but I think for a while now I've been having that same feeling for you."

Markus' eyelids widened by a tiny fraction. "You have?"

**_ [Background score:] _ **

She didn't say anything vocally, but she showed him a small smile and she gave a nod of her head in addition, with the look in her eyes also serving as further evidence of the fact that what she said was true.

They didn't need spoken words to know that this mutual feeling they had for each other was causing them to have the same thought about what to do next, and, picking up on this thought of the other one's, they both reached out one each of their hands, Markus moving his first, and these hands (North's left one and Markus' right) came into contact, being held flat against each other. While their palms were connected like this, the skin covering those hands retracted away to show the true form, white plastic, underneath; the outer skin covering androids' bodies, which was what gave them their human appearance along with their hair being similarly generated, was completely synthetic and this outer skin and hair could be deactivated either partially or entirely whenever the android wanted, but it seemed that in this case the partial deactivation of it, specifically from their hands that were touching, wasn't as easily controllable, which was possibly due to the strong emotion they were currently experiencing.

A few moments later, their hands changed position so that now, instead of being pressed up to each other by the palms, they were interlocked via the fingers, with the synthetic skin that was supposed to be covering them still absent.

Finally, still in silence, Markus and North were, understandably, very hesitant about it and it therefore took up a short stretch of time, but slowly and gradually, their heads inched in closer to each other. For a tiny, brief moment, Markus wondered to himself whether this was really a good idea, because he didn't want to run any risk of embarrassing himself - evidently, androids found it just as difficult to show how they felt in this respect as humans did.  
It was very shortly after this brief moment when, their hands still being connected with their fingers intertwined, their lips also made contact with each other.

This experience was completely unknown to both of them until now, but at this current time, they nonetheless found it to be an intensely pleasurable one. The seconds during which their lips were joined together were exhilarating, frightening and soothing all at the same time, and these words ended up merging into a single, solitary adjective which was the only one that described it accurately enough:  
 _amazing_.

Kamski, once again, was sat in his office that was as pristine as the rest of the CyberLife Tower, his fingers moving quickly across the keyboard connected to the computer on his desk, as the sun shining through the huge window behind him was beginning to recede downwards, dragging its light away with it. It was the Summer, so this was why the process of the sunlight fading away was taking so long even though it was about 8:55 at night, although by now the process was - this is a rough estimate - 75% complete, and as a result the areas of the office that were illuminated by the receding light were a bright orange colour, softly faded at the edges. Next to one side of the desk, Chloe was quietly putting reports about various experiments which has taken place that day together into different piles, along with filing away some of the information papers about her fellow androids into the side drawers of the desk; each of these papers displayed the android's name, model number, superpower and serial number. 

"You asked to see me, sir?" Perkins appeared in the doorway to the office.

Elijah looked up from his computer at him, also taking his hands off of the keyboard. "I did. I wanted to see you so that I can talk to you about the problem we're currently faced with." He elegantly got up from his desk chair and approached his security chief until they were only stood about 5 feet away from each other. "You told me a week ago about how the pair of WR400s we dispatched to carry out the same task as that PL600, Daniel, a month ago disappeared on the same day they were sent out."

"Yes, we're still looking into the matter and so far there's still been no sign of either of them. But a few days ago we managed to track down, recapture and execute two of the other escaped androids in the surrounding area, and we also got another one last week shortly after that incident with the pair of WR400s. All three of those androids were caught without anyone from the outside seeing them or finding out about it." He informed his boss in reply. 

"That's exactly the problem, Richard: it's been nearly a month since twenty-three of them broke out of this Tower, and in that time we've only caught a grand total of four. Both plans to send out non-escaped ones to track them down have proved to be unsuccessful and as a whole, the entire operation to clean up this mess has been moving at a snail's pace." The younger of the duo said, his face showing a distinct expression of disappointment blended with annoyance as well as his tone of voice indicating the same emotions. 

"So what's your next plan, sir?" 

"It's just an idea I've been testing in my mind for the last few days, but I was thinking that since Daniel, Traci and Tracy have all failed in their tasks despite being three of the more powerful androids we have, it's perhaps time to kick things up a few notches." Kamski's above mentioned demeanour partially melted away as the thoughts inside his head formed into ones about the new scheme he'd formulated. "I'm considering sending out _him_." 

"What do you mean?" Perkins had a feeling who it was that Elijah was referring to, but he asked this question to be sure about whether his educated guess was correct. 

"What I mean is, the non-escaped android who I'm thinking about dispatching is that one who we always keep more secure inside his cell, and for good reason - the strongest one we have."

Perkins and Chloe both immediately cottoned on to who he was talking about, and whilst the former's only visible outward response was his eyebrows raising themselves in surprise, the RT600 in the blue dress, meanwhile, abruptly stopped all movements of her hands in mid-filing and turned her head around to face where Elijah and Richard were standing with her own eyes widened. 

"As in _him_ , like you said?" Chloe queried. She'd encountered the one they were talking about a few times before, and during one particular experiment which was being carried out on him, the main superpower he had was so powerful and volatile that it had caused an explosion inside the room he was in at the time, killing all six of the CyberLife scientists who were in the same room as him when the explosion went off. She could still remember the sight of the blood splattered up the walls and the six partially dismembered corpses slumped in the corners of the room, with the one who'd caused it all laid down quietly on the metal table he'd been cuffed to with an emotionless expression on his face, as if nothing had happened. 

"Yes, that's right." Kamski nodded, turning in her direction just for a couple of seconds before he faced Perkins again. "He's perfect for finishing the job that the Tracies and Daniel couldn't." One of his small lopsided smirks made a reappearance on the corners of his lips as he spoke. 

**_ [Another background score:] _ **

Sure enough, about three or four minutes later he, Chloe and Perkins were all walking in lockstep with each other down the corridors of the Tower's underground floor, and by now they'd reached the corridor where the cells were located. 

"Sending out an android to find the escaped ones is a fairly reasonable idea, sir, but isn't sending this one in particular a little overkill? Because I was just wondering whether we really need one with so much power." Said Richard. 

"Trust me, this is the only viable option we have left, because this way, there's much less chance of him failing in his task or deserting from it like what's happened during the previous attempts, and if we don't take this kind of action soon then the risk of the public finding out about the androids and about the truth will increase significantly, and the entire company will be left to the mercy of the authorities. And we all know how that'll end." The male with the blue eyes answered. "I'll be sending him out in a little under a week's time." 

"My main concern is about whether sending him out is _dangerous_." Chloe added. "With all due respect, Elijah, we've seen the way he behaves and we also saw the incident that happened five months ago." She referred to the previously mentioned occurrence involving the explosion which took six lives all in one go. 

"It is a small worry of mine, too. But what we've also observed from his behaviour is his loyalty to us, and that's what overtakes that small worry." 

The three of them finally arrived at the cell which was more heavily guarded than any of the others: while every other one had a passcode lock, this one also had a retinal scanner and a biometric lock. It obviously took a little bit longer than it would for the other cells as a result, but after Kamski typed in the passcode, placed his thumb onto the scanner of the biometric lock and additionally placed his right eye up to the retinal scanner, these three security systems unlocked themselves, allowing him to push the door open. 

The inside of the cell was bare like the others, although this one was only _almost_ so, because there were two guards stood stiffly with semi-automatic rifles in their hands, and they were standing on either side of a large, cylindrical glass tank which was completely devoid of water or any other fluids and was only containing one single, solitary person who was stood up and had his back facing the door's direction. One of the guards, specifically the one on the left, was Captain Allen, the man next in the chain of command after Perkins and who was the leader of the Tower's guards.

Elijah, still experiencing the same mood as a few minutes ago in his office when he began to simper, walked closer to the glass tank while Richard was right behind him and Chloe remained by the door, and he placed a few of the fingertips from his right hand onto the glass; it was four inches thick, and the entire cell was larger than the others so as to accommodate the substantial size of the tank. 

And then, eight seconds after Kamski had put these fingertips of his onto the glass, the android inside the tank turned around, fully facing and looking straight at this human with his ever so slightly narrowed eyes that were a bright, piercing grey colour. 


	31. Episode 11: Two Sides of the Same Coin [Part 1/3]

__

_Two years prior to when the beginning of this series took place, Connor found_ _himself_ _standing on one of the polished paths at the side of the Zen Garden, as whilst his physical body was located inside his cell, still standing up,_ _he'd_ _closed his eyes and now here his mind was,_ _projecting_ _itself as a holographic image of his body which he could still control in this place._

_The scenery around him was a little bit different to what it usually looked like: today, its sunlight and sky appeared to be more like that of the early evening - somewhere between yellow and orange -_ _rather_ _than the sky's usual blue colour, and also, the leaves on the trees were an even darker shade of orange to match, with a couple of them falling off of these trees and fluttering to the ground like birds. All of this was further proof of how Kamski had gone well and_ _truly_ _all-out when he first designed and programmed the Zen Garden._

_His attention was suddenly caught by the sight of a certain woman in a white dress, seen approaching him from the left out of the corner of his eye._   
_"Hello again, Connor." Amanda greeted him with a partial smile on her face._

_The RK800 nodded his head_ _marginally_ _in_ _response_ _to her and said, "Hello Amanda."_

_"Would you care for a little walk?" The interface enquired, and he immediately felt as if it was much more of a case of her telling him_ _rather_ _than asking him; it was just her elegant but subtle, commanding mannerisms and the atmosphere that he could detect hanging around her which told him this,_ _and it was as if a tiny little voice_ _contained_ _deep within the back of his head, one that was accessible to not another_ _single_ _person except for him, was whispering, 'Say yes. Just go along_ _with_ _it,_ _don't_ _question it.'_

_The nod of his head that he gave this time was to a larger degree and therefore more noticeable than the previous one he'd shown, and with that, he walked up to the right_ _hand_ _side next to Amanda and the pair strolled at a slow and easy pace down_ _the_ _path, the polished white marble floor of it showing mostly obscured reflections of these two people._

_"_ _There's_ _something_ _I_ _wish to tell_ _you_ _about." The female spoke again a few seconds later, turning her_ _head_ _to look at him while they continued to walk._

_"What is it?" Connor, already considering_ _the_ _possibility that what she was about to tell him was_ _something_ _which_ _would_ _affect him in a negative way, asked._

_"Do you remember that_ _procedure_ _which was carried out on you a week ago?" She knew that he did remember it, because of the fact that an android's CPU held on to every memory that android had as if it were a never-ending camera recording, but she only worded it this way in order to bring up the topic_ _rather_ _than remind him of it as such._

_**[Background score:]** _

_"I do; it was the one where_ _I_ _was placed inside a sensory deprivation tank and it was twenty-five minutes later when_ _I_ _was removed from it again,_ _during_ _which time the CyberLife researchers around me conducted a scan of some sort."_ _He said as his words prompted him to recall this experience - the twenty-five minutes_ _he'd_ _spent in a nearly weightless environment without being able to see or hear anything from his surroundings, causing his line of sight to be completely and utterly pitch black. It was in a small part of this time window when his mind went to the Zen Garden, like it had done right now._

_"Well, that scan they performed on you was of your body and the entirety of your biological information. It was done so that those scientists could gain a template for what they did next."_

_Connor looked back at her with his lower lip hanging open by a couple of degrees, almost undetectably, in confusion as well as his quirked eyebrows indicating the same emotion. Although the one thing he wasn't confused about right now was that same possibility that what was about to be revealed to him would affect him negatively._

_Amanda emitted a soft, quiet chuckle for a split second under her breath, before she replied to his facial expression with, "There's someone I'd like you to meet. He's right this way." She motioned with one of her hands in the direction of the rocky island, where the white rose pillar and trellis were located, in the centre of this garden._

_They_ _kept walking along the path, next to the river surrounding the central island, until they came to one of the matching polished white bridges that led to it; they crossed this bridge and finally arrived on the island, stopping in front of the side of the pillar which it was facing._

_"This is who I was telling you about a few moments ago._ _" She approached closer to where the trellis was and turned around to face him again, and it was at this moment when someone stepped out from behind the pillar that all the countless red roses were growing on the first few meters of like they were also doing on the trellis._

_The brown eyed male got a full view of this person who'd stepped out from behind the pillar. It was a man whose attire consisted of black denim jeans and a mostly white jacket with some parts of it being black, along with the jacket additionally having all of the typical android identifiers on it: a blue triangle on the left breast, a matching blue armband on the right upper arm and his model and serial number written on the right breast. These respectively said 'RK900' and '313 248 317-87' and the collar of the jacket was a high closed one._

_But what was most surprising about this other person was his physical appearance -_ _he looked almost identical to Connor, with the only differences being that while the latter had brown eyes, the RK900's eye colour was bright grey and he was an inch taller than the previously mentioned telekinetic male. Even the shoes they were wearing looked exactly the same._

_Amanda, still standing next to the taller one, informed, "Connor, this is Conrad. He's a clone created from your biological data."_

_Even more taken by surprise than he was a few seconds ago, Connor looked into the eyes of the one apparently named Conrad, who returned the direct gaze. It all made sense now; this android in front of him in the white jacket_ _was the end result from the scanning procedure carried out on him a week ago, and he'd been created from that scan of the former, which had been used as a template._

_Conrad was just as astonished as the shorter of the two males was, because both of them felt as if they were staring back at themselves out of a mirror, albeit an inaccurate one_ _but nonetheless it still felt a little bit like they were looking at themselves from another person's eyes. The resemblance to each other was uncanny._

_"He was activated just yesterday, and his powers are ones which are far beyond that of any other android created before; he's the most advanced android yet." Said Amanda, with the fragmentary smile she'd displayed about a minute beforehand returning to her features. "Conrad, this is Connor. You're younger than him in actual age, but you were designed to be older than him in human age, so he's what you might refer to as your 'little brother' as humans call it." She then addressed the one who she'd been talking about a couple of seconds ago._

_He continued gazing straight into Connor's soul with those mysterious, almost piercing grey orbs of his, and his head tilted itself by a small fraction in the same manner as that of the RK800 as, at the same time, three words fell from his mouth:_   
_"_ _My_ _little brother..."_

_It seemed that their voices sounded_ _exactly_ _identical, as well, which made the 'little brother' experience a sharp, instantaneous cold feeling in his chest and abdomen area set in motion by another burst of startlement from his brain. And then after this, a few more uncomfortably silent moments passed by in which the two physically similar androids were locked in a staring contest of sorts, Connor looking at his new 'big brother' in his still fresh shock at the revelation and Conrad looking back at the slightly shorter one as if he were studying him._

_4:18 PM, July 5th 2019_

Back in the present moment, it was another sunny afternoon at the field where the AV club building resided. The fact that this present moment was now in July meant the weather was gradually getting warmer the further time got into the Summer, similarly to how a person's surroundings became darker piece by piece the further they ventured into a cave, and as a result our four human heroes who were here at this building today were all wearing clothes with short sleeves - it wasn't August yet, so therefore the temperature wasn't blazing hot, but it was instead pleasantly warm like it had been so far during the Summer. Although the temperature had indeed picked up by a little bit today, in contrast to the spits of rain that had fallen upon the land last night.

After the seven minutes in heaven game last Saturday night, Markus and North told the rest of the group about how they'd confessed their affections for each other, and afterwards they all spent the rest of their sleepover watching the other two films that Jenna had brought while outside, there was a downpour of rain (fortunately, the trio of girls' bikes had dried out by the time mid morning came) and in the morning, when everyone had awoken again, a few of them watched a fox that was pottering around outside for a couple of minutes before shortly afterwards Eve, Arthur, Jenna and Andrea all had to pack up their things and go home. 

It was now a little bit under a week later, because today was a Friday, and whilst Kara, Alice and Ralph were looking at Google pictures of different beautiful, exotic flowers and birds on Eve's phone which she'd let them borrow this afternoon, Andrea, Arthur and Eve were also using Google on the computer in the room to show North and Markus a few funny memes about various things. 

Connor and Jenna, meanwhile, were sat next to each other outside on one of the steps that lead up to the door, engaging in amiable conversation. 

"Also, insgesamt, bist du okay?" The latter asked in her paternal native language, which translated as, _So, overall, are you okay?_ She'd found out last week that androids had the databases of three foreign languages except for English stored inside their CPU: German, French and Japanese, and they were also capable of downloading databases on other languages if they wanted to, so she'd started this conversation in the former just for the fun of it; being half Austrian meant that she could speak the language fluently. The reason behind why she'd asked this question was because it was simply a reasonable conversation opener. 

"Ich bin, danke." Connor replied to her in the same language. _I am, thank you_. "Es sieht so aus als wäre der Rege der Letzte Nacht kam inzwischen Weg." _It looks like the rain that came last night has gone by now._ He came up with a topic of small talk on the spur of the moment, as, piece by piece, he was getting better at it. 

"Ja. Es war nur ein wenig Nieselregen, so dass es nicht sehr lange dauerte, um zu trocknen, vor allem bei heutigem Wetter." _Yeah. It was just a little drizzle, so it didn't take very long to dry, especially in today's weather._ The 16 year old human added with a little nod of her head; she, too, was getting better at making small talk with others. 

For a few seconds, the pair of them were stuck for what to say next, because making chitchat was still nevertheless hard for them both, and the atmosphere of slight uncomfortableness settled over them as a result. 

"Kann ich dich was Fragen, Jenna?" He enquired, making the awkward silence vanish again. _Can I ask you something, Jenna?_

The mousy haired girl with the glasses turned back to look at him - for the few seconds where they momentarily couldn't think of what to say, she'd been staring off into space - and she responded with, "Feuer weg." _Fire away_.

"Du und Eve habt es mir vorher erzählt, vor fast einem Monat, über wie manche Leute denken von einander als jemand wichtiger als nur ein Freund, und als der person wer ist am meisten kostbar zu ihnen. Ich war neugierig über wie sie sehen einander dass weg. Was ich meine ist, warum dass ein bestimmte person?" Queried Connor. _You and Eve told me before, almost a month ago, about how some people think of each other as someone more important than just a friend, and as the person who is most precious to them. I was curious about how they see each other that way. What I mean is, why that particular person?_

_** [Background score:] ** _

The youngest of the three girls pursed her lips, trying to work out how to word the answer to his question accurately enough despite barely having any idea what the answer was herself. "Ich weiß nicht... umm... das ist eine schwierige frage, ich denke... es ist möglicherweise weil, wie Arthur und Andrea oder North und Markus, Sie bekommen einfach ein Gefühl, tief in Ihrem Bauch und auch in Ihren Truhen dass sagt ihnen dass die spezifische person ist jemand der ist... richtig für ihnen. Ich bin mir ehrlich nicht sicher, es gibt viele Menschen die nicht vollständig kennen die Antwort untereinander, einschließlich mir." _I don't know... umm... that's a difficult question, I think... it's perhaps because, like Arthur and Andrea or North and Markus, they just get a feeling deep in their belly and also in their chests that tells them that the specific person is someone who's... right for them. I'm honestly not sure, there are many people who don't fully know the answer themselves, including me._

"Ein Instinkt den nur ihnen verstehen können." He said, nodding his head in understanding at her reply. _An instinct that only they can understand_.

"Art von wie dass, ja." _Sort of like that, yeah_. Said the female. "Manchmal es ist ein plötzlicher instinkt dass kommt sehr schnell, aber es ist auch ein dass... allmälich wächst stärker im Laufe der Zeit." _Sometimes it's a sudden instinct that comes very quickly, but it's also sometimes one that... comes slowly and grows gradually stronger over time_.

The two of them looked at each other after she'd finished speaking, that same awkward silence that had fallen down onto them under a minute earlier coming out from behind the curtain once again, and at the same time as this, she suddenly felt an impulse propel itself through her brain and the bones in her body. 

_This is bad, this is a very bad idea, this is going against a huge part of my personality, _She thought to herself, remembering how what she was about to do defied the fact that the only member of the opposite gender (outside her family) who she wasn't socially awkward around was Arthur. 

_Yep, this is definitely a terrible idea_ , Jenna also mentally said, before she shut her eyes and decided to just go ahead with what the impulse was telling her to do: with her eyes still tightly closed, she abruptly moved her head closer to Connor and her lips came into physical contact with his. 

Understandably, the android felt startled by this, but what he also felt, on the spur of the moment, was the lack of a desire to resist against it. His eyes were widened and his LED was flickering yellow, although he'd be blatantly lying if he said that what was happening right now didn't feel electrifying in a pleasant way. 

Jenna opened her eyes again and saw that because of them being shut a second ago, she'd slightly missed her trajectory and her lips weren't fully connected with Connor's, so she moved them fractionally so that they now were, and she, too, felt a shiver run down her spine in the same way a spider would. 

She pulled away, albeit reluctantly, after five more seconds of it, and she could only look into his eyes again for half a second before she shyly looked down at the black converse trainers she was wearing. Connor wasn't completely sure how to react either, and he made a lost-for-words expression like in the gif at the top of this chapter. 

The moment between them was then interrupted, though, because they heard the faint sound of someone panting for breath slowly getting louder and louder, prompting them to turn their heads so as to see what the cause of it was. And the sight they were met with was a certain tall human running towards the club building and out of the area of the surrounding woods where the gravel path was. 

"Hank!" Eve, now walking up to the building's open doorway upon noticing him, exclaimed. 

"Hey guys." The grey haired police Lieutenant slowed to a stop in front of the steps leading to the door and he put his hands on his knees, bent over as he tried to get his breath back - he'd obviously been running as fast as he possibly could for a fair while. "There's.... somethin' I... came here to tell you about..." It was seven seconds later when he was able to speak again in between regaining his breath, and he additionally wiped one of his hands across his brow. "I was in the city a little earlier... and... I saw a guy, just for a second; he looked like he was another android, and he really didn't look friendly. I got in my car and drove here as fast as I could, 'cause what I also saw was that this guy looked almost exactly like you, Connor." 

This male who he'd just addressed was immediately put on the receiving end of a sinking feeling in the back of his CPU and in the pit of his abdomen. 


	32. Episode 11: Two Sides of the Same Coin [Part 2/3]

"And then after you saw this person, you came straight here to tell us about it?" Queried Arthur a couple of minutes later, with everyone now inside the club building with the door closed, after they'd been provided with a quick explanation. 

"Yeah. I came to tell you 'cause like I said, he honestly didn't look friendly at all, and that's just what I could tell from lookin' at him for a _second_ , and also because I swear he's Connor's spittin' image. He had his back to me so I couldn't fully see his face, but from the angle I was at I could still see a little of his face and it was pretty much _identical_." Hank, sat in the desk chair which was adjacent to the one North was perched in, replied to the male Briton. 

The RK800 was still experiencing a sinking feeling deep down in a dark pit inside his abdomen area that had completely overridden the oddly satisfying electric-like feeling he'd received a minute ago, when Jenna had obeyed the impulse to place her lips onto his for a few moments. "This android, did you see what its model number was? A large majority of us have our model number written on the back of the clothes we're given as well as on the front, and if the one you saw is who I think it is, then he wouldn't have changed into any human clothes." Connor asked, partially acting on an educated guess, while at the same time he used one of his hands to point at his own model number written on the right breast of his own jacket before pointing at where it was also written on the back of it, underneath the word 'ANDROID'. 

"I think so, yeah. The alleyway he was in was dark and it was just for a second like I said, but I think I saw what his model number was." Said the American in response, and his eyebrows then furrowed as he tried to recall what it was. "I think it was... uh... I can't fully remember, but I think it was ummm... RK something... RK900." 

The apprehension Connor had been feeling for the last minute immediately increased itself in magnitude upon hearing this; around the room, Markus, Kara and Alice's eyes all widened and they felt a jolt in addition. 

"We're in trouble..." Kara muttered at a volume that was neither at its average level nor quiet enough for the others not to hear. 

"Why? What's wrong?" Asked Eve in concern. 

"The android Hank saw is one named Conrad." Said Markus, looking slightly off into space worriedly despite mostly directing his gaze at the middle born girl in reply. "He was created from a copy of Connor's biological data, and that's why he looks nearly identical to him." 

"Like a copy-and-paste?" Enquired Jenna.

"Almost like that, yes." 

"two years ago, a few of the scientists at the Tower took me to be scanned in a sensory deprivation tank, and then they used that scan of my body to create Conrad as a clone of me, possibly as another one of their experiments." Connor began to explain the backstory. "Once the cloning process was complete, he was given his powers and he was activated; according to Amanda, he was designed to be older than me in human age, so she referred to me as his 'little brother'. But when he was being designed from my biological template, a few parts of his appearance were changed so that the CyberLife staff would be able to tell us apart: his eyes are grey, while my own are brown, and he's taller than me by an inch." 

"What powers does he have?" Hank asked. 

"He's the only one with this, but he has three superpowers." 

" _Three_ of them?" Andrea exclaimed in slight astonishment - she'd heard of the few androids who had two abilities, but never a single one with _this_ many. It partially came across to her as overkill, as well.

"One of them's barrier creation. It means he can make a force field around himself that stops anything from getting through, even bullets." Markus told the five humans. "His second power is a slicing ability, like Daniel's, although Conrad's has a longer range, so his is a lot more dangerous."

**_ [B _ ** **_ ackground score:] _ **

"And the third, his main ability, is the most lethal, and it's one that no other android has." The male whose ability was telekinesis said. "He can create and manipulate antimatter, which explodes upon reaching its maximum energy level." 

"One time, Ralph heard that his antimatter caused an explosion that instantly killed all 6 of the scientists who were there with him." The WR600 added, also starting to twitch a little bit with his eyes widened. "So because of these dangerous powers of his, even some of the CyberLife staff are scared at the idea of him being in the outside world." 

"Maybe they sent him out to find and kill the escaped androids, like they did with Tracy and Traci." Alice spoke up. 

"And like they also did with Daniel." Added Markus. "From what I've seen before, Conrad's behaviour has shown that he's loyal to CyberLife and he also looks down on humans from the outside world, so that would be the perfect combination for them to dispatch him for that purpose." 

"So in other words, they created a monster and now he's a puppet to their command." Said Andrea, the realisation at how much trouble they were all in sinking into her brain along with that of Hank, Jenna, Arthur and Eve and making all five of them feel the same emotion of uneasiness as a result. 

"Exactly." North nodded her head. 

"Well then, it seems that if Conrad finds us, we'll be in _very_ deep, dark schtuck." Jenna's eyes were still becoming wider and wider by the second. 

"I'm scared, Kara." The YK500 currently sat in the lap of this female with the pixie cut told her, inching in closer to her for comfort. 

"I know, Alice, I know. But he could be anywhere by now; we know it was recently but we don't know when he was sent out, so who knows, he might even be in another _county,_ because by now some of the other escapees are probably spread out across other parts of England." The AX400 reassured the child android, putting her hand on the back of the latter's head for the same reason.   
  


For the last few seconds in which this conversation had taken place, Ralph had also been stood next to one of the room's windows and occasionally glancing out of it at the surrounding scenery whenever there was a pause, but on the arrival of this pause in particular, he appeared to be completely frozen in place, staring out the window at something without saying a word. 

"Ralph thinks we're _already_ in deep trouble." At last he spoke again, although this time his voice was wavering and to put it simply, judging by his facial expression he looked downright _terrified_. 

"What've you seen, Ralph? What is it?" North asked as she approached him, along with Arthur. 

Once again without saying anything, the android with the huge scar across one of his cheeks pointed a marginally trembling finger in the direction of what he saw, which made Arthur and the WR400 divert their gaze to this same direction: a faraway part of the sky.  
The thing that seemed to have caught Ralph's attention a couple of seconds ago, in this part of the sky off in the distance, was a black helicopter which was heading straight towards their location. And upon seeing this herself, North's expression morphed into very nearly the same one as his before she managed to say:

**_ [Background score (turn this one up from mute slowly):] _ **

"That's a CyberLife helicopter." 

The soft but nonetheless sickening feeling of dread in the pit of the five humans' guts suddenly transformed into a huge jolt of panic, and the six androids experienced the same kind of reaction - they'd been found. They all knew that CyberLife was going to find them sooner or later, but it was still something that they hoped would perhaps happen a few _years_ on from that time or maybe even a couple of decades at a push. 

"What do we do? What in God's name do we do?!" Jenna began to partially let this fear manifest outwardly without fully releasing it, while they could all hear the sound of the helicopter's blades growing steadily louder with every single half of a moment that passed. It wasn't a sound like the one most other helicopters they'd heard make; this one wasn't like one continuous humming noise, and it was instead a lower pitched, heavy one whose blade slaps were separate from each other, like the sound made by a helicopter built for combat. 

"There's still a way out of this, we can just go out the door in a second and make a run for it." Arthur replied whilst he, in addition, decided that it was time to panic a little bit. "If we all go now, we can make a mad dash into the woods before the helicopter gets here and then we won't be quite as out in the ope-" He abruptly stopped before he could finish his sentence and yelped in fright, with a few of the others doing the same, when they turned towards where the door was and saw a man standing there, in the now open doorway after having just silently arrived there like a character in a horror film. Specifically, a man who was wearing a mostly white jacket with the word 'RK900' plastered across the right breast and who, sure enough, looked uncannily like Connor in terms of physical appearance. 

"That must be Conrad." Andrea said quietly to her boyfriend.

"DON'T MOVE! Come any closer and I swear I'll blow your goddamn head off!" Hank shouted as he quickly took his revolver out of his pocket and pointed it straight at the grey eyed male's forehead. Behind the former, the female brunette fractionally hid herself behind Arthur, Alice did the same with Kara but to a larger degree, and everyone else assumed slightly defensive stances in case there was a fight coming, which included Ralph holding his knife up. Outside, the helicopter's blades had become almost deafening now, because it was coming to land in the field outside the building. 

Conrad's eyes narrowed themselves a tiny bit. "Even standing from here I can slice your own head clean off in just one second if I wanted to, so I dare you to try, _Lieutenant_." This last word in his sentence came out dripping with venom, as if the manner in which it was spoken was intended as being disdainful - a couple of members of the group felt a chill run down their spines at this moment because of how completely identical his voice was to Connor's - and after he'd finished speaking he, too, pulled a gun on Hank from out of one of his jacket's pockets. His was more of a modern-looking one, sleek and jet black, and upon doing a quick scan of it a few of our android protagonists found out that it was a Ruger 8605. 

About five or six seconds passed where the two were aiming their firearms at each other, Hank having the others stood behind him at the same time and Conrad currently having no one behind him - if he wanted to, he had the capability to wipe out all eleven of them one by one, or some of them he could eliminate at the same time. With his powers, these possibilities were pretty much endless. Or he was also good enough with handling guns to just use the one in his hand to accomplish the same goal in a couple of seconds flat via that method. 

The previously mentioned fact that there was no one behind him soon ceased to exist, however, when, with the helicopter blades outside still being audible but slowly fading away, a man walked in through the open door and stopped next to Conrad.   
The full view which the group now had of this man showed them that he was a certain human male with blue eyes and short dark brown hair which was tied back into a neat manbun. 

"Kamski." Hank growled under his breath, his hands still not faltering as they continued to hold his revolver, pointed directly at Conrad. 

"Lieutenant Anderson." Elijah smiled ever so slightly at one corner of his mouth. "This is definitely an interesting turn of events, especially after almost a month ago." 

"Yeah, well, it's funny the things you find out about people." The older of the two Americans responded while nodding his head by a small fraction, maintaining the stiff, determined expression on his face. 

"So you're the git behind all this." Arthur addressed Kamski coldly. By now he'd managed to pluck up the courage to take a couple of steps closer to him and Conrad. 

The CEO of CyberLife turned his head by a fraction to look at the one who'd just spoken to him, and his smirk disappeared, making way for a mostly suppressed but nevertheless chilling scowl. "And you're the outsiders who've been manipulating my androids into believing that they're free to merrily frolic wherever they please in the outside world." He was talking to Arthur and the trio of girls simultaneously. "If I'd have known there were going to be four of you here in total, five if you include the Lieutenant, then I'd have dressed a little more formally." Kamski motioned with one of his hands at his getup, which was a black jacket with a dark grey shirt and dark blue-grey jeans.

"How did you even know we _were_ here? What I mean is how did you find us?" The Briton with the brown eyes asked. 

"Before I was dispatched two days ago, the CyberLife staff implanted a microchip underneath my LED." Conrad answered, his own hardened expression unwavering. "It emits a signal that allows them to track my location. I send them an electronic signal back through the microchip that means I've located one or more escaped androids, and if I haven't already eliminated those androids, then they execute them when they arrive at my location, or if I have already killed the escapees I've found, then CyberLife simply comes to dispose of the bodies." 

"He's already found two of the escaped ones yesterday and taken care of them himself." Said Elijah in smug proudness.

"You truly _are_ a git aren't you!" Jenna snarled irritably straight away after he'd finished talking and, albeit still internally panicking, she walked up towards him and Conrad until she was at the front of our pack of heroes, alongside Hank. "If we're speaking honestly here and we're putting our cards on the table, I think it's pretty ironic that you and your lot call yourselves 'Cyber _Life_ ' when it seems your solution to most problems that you're faced with is to _kill_ people." 

"Right... I see. And I presume it's because of this same logic of yours that you'd never consider discarding your _phone_ , for example, if _that_ was beyond hope?" Kamski, not used to being spoken to like she'd just done, retorted snidely. 

"What are you even talking about? I mean yeah, they're not human, but they're _**people**_!" Andrea snapped back as she fully came out from behind Arthur and she, too, stepped forwards. "All they want is to live normally, like us, even if everyone else from the outside world never knows about them being another species. Why are you _so_ determined to stop them from doing that?" She demanded, using her left hand to motion behind her at where Connor, Markus, Kara, Alice, Ralph and North were all standing. 

"My androids are completely aware of the rules I have: obey me and the other staff members at the Tower, and make no attempts to escape; very simple ones, don't you think? And they're also completely aware of the punishments that await them if they disobey those rules, so they've brought their own death sentences upon them. And you look to be in your late teens so I wouldn't expect you to fully understand, but another thing is that if they escape and outsiders find out about them, then those outsiders will leak the information about the truth to other people and then it'll spread to the police and then the government, who'll then find out that CyberLife has been lying to them and withholding a very big secret, and they'll proceed to shut the entire company down - and I can't have that at all." 

"Nice monologue, I just spend most of it watching your mouth going up and down." Remarked the oldest out of the three human females, who'd spoken before him. This comment prompted his scowl that he'd shown a minute ago to make a full return.

"There's just one little problem with your so-called simple rules: what if, I don't know, some of the androids start having plans of their own?" Eve added in the same manner as her green eyed friend. "What if they start having a brilliant little thing that every human has, called free will?" 

"I'm done debating this matter." Kamski stated, momentarily placing the fingers of his right hand onto his temple at the fact that, evidently, these four outsiders as well as Hank were just as much of a lost cause as the escapees. And then, acting on another idea that he'd come up with a few seconds ago on the spur of the moment, he said, "We're clearly getting nowhere. Conrad, you have permission to pull the trigger." 

"Yes, Elijah." The RK900 replied after a moment's silence which he took to savour the sound of the order he'd just been given, before he wasted no time in obeying it. He squeezed his index finger all the way down onto the trigger of the Ruger 8605, while at the same time Kamski pulled his own out of his jeans' back left pocket, and a deafening gunshot noise which made Alice yelp in startlement resounded all around the room as a bullet hurtled out of the gun, heading directly towards Hank's head. 

It only took place in about a quarter of a second, but Ralph, predicting the movement of the bullet, hurriedly threw his knife in its path, making Hank and the others who were near to this path of the bullet duck down because of the knife. The blade deflected the bullet, creating a loud, metallic _**clang**_ sound as it rebounded off of the knife, which flew into the wall to the right of the protagonist group and hung there with its blade lodged into that wall by a couple of centimetres. 

After those few members of the group had ducked down, with the others quickly turning away in case any more bullets were fired at them, they suddenly noticed as they stood back up and resumed their positions that one of them was missing from where she'd been stood a moment ago. 

"It now looks like _you're_ the ones who can't come any closer without someone's head getting blown off." Commented Conrad, who the group could see had Jenna in a headlock with the end of his gun pressing into the side of her head; Kamski had that expression of smugness illustrated on his face again.


	33. Episode 11: Two Sides of the Same Coin [Part 3/3]

Everyone just stopped and stared in steadily growing apprehension at what was in front of them: Jenna, with the current width of her eyes understandably making her look like a rabbit in the headlights, trapped in a headlock by Conrad, who had the end of his gun pressed right up to the right side of her head while Kamski, judging by the expression on his face, appeared to be pleased with himself - after all, why wouldn't he? The first part of his plan seemed to have worked. The group had evidently not heard him give the order to Conrad to grab her because of the gunshot noise a few seconds ago. 

North and Markus, in response to their friend being held captive like this, began to cook up electrokinetic and pyrokinetic energy respectively in their hands, but Conrad suddenly told them,  
"I'd strongly suggest against doing that; I could put an end to it much quicker than you could charge up your powers to cause me any harm." His tone still contained the warmth of an iceberg in December, but in contrast to this, his mouth twisted itself slightly into a tiny, nearly undetectable mocking smile that only took up about a twentieth of his lips.

"Let's go." Said Kamski. "Our work here is done, so we're going back to the Tower."

"But Elijah, what about the others? There are six escapees here, and as for the other four humans, there can't be any witnesses." The android with the grey eyes turned his head to look at him as he said this.

"That's an order, Conrad. And I already have a plan that takes care of them." The thirty-six year old's smug expression only soured fractionally for the second in which he said the first sentence, the previous version immediately returning afterwards. "Bring the girl." This last part made the youngest out of the trio, still in the headlock, begin to internally tremble, and it took a **_lot_** of willpower to not show this outwardly. Anyone would feel this way if they were being held hostage and were about to be taken to their captors' base of operations, especially if these captors were a very wealthy company who had people with lethal superpowers at their disposal. 

"Oh no you don't - you're not gettin' away with her, Kamski!" Hank yelled before he then fired his revolver at him, not aiming to kill him as such but rather immobilise him via a wound. 

Conrad quickly shoved his gun into his pocket and thrust that arm outwards in the time it took for the bullet to hurtle through the space separating the two groups, the same way Connor did when he used his telekinesis to a large scale, and he put his barrier creation ability to good use just as this bullet was only a couple of inches away from coming into contact with the leader of CyberLife. A force field was created in front of them, which was almost completely invisible except for a brief dark blue ripple being seen when Hank's bullet impacted against it, with that bullet falling down onto the floor two seconds later, its momentum completely snatched away. 

"It appears that you still don't understand what I can do, Lieutenant." Remarked Connor's 'big brother' clone. By this point Jenna's legs were beginning to show signs of outwardly trembling after all because of this evidence that what Markus said a minute or two ago was true: not even bullets could get through Conrad's force fields. Stuck for what else to say at this point, and wanting to have at least one final word just in case she was killed at some point soon, she cried out, 

"Help!" With her eyes displaying the same word embedded deep inside them. 

Connor stepped forwards and tried to stop the pair of antagonists from getting away with his friend, doing this by telekinetically yanking Ralph's knife out of the wall and, thrusting his forearm out in front of him with his index and middle fingers and his thumb outwards, and the knife soared towards Conrad's neck. This was another thing that the latter intercepted, however, because he created another force field in front of him which stopped the knife in its tracks when they collided with each other, and for good measure, he additionally used his slicing ability to cleanly cut up the small melee weapon into dozens of small pieces in nothing more than a second flat before the force field dissipated and the remains of the knife fell feebly onto the floor like the bullet Hank had fired a few seconds ago. Ralph's irises contracted whilst his eyebrows lowered themselves into an irked position, both of these being a reaction to watching his weapon being destroyed - he couldn't exactly use his zoolingualism to defend himself in a fight, so there went his one and only method of protecting himself. 

"We're getting nowhere by staying here." Said Kamski to his accomplice before he then addressed one of our heroes, "If you want the girl, you're going to have to join us at the CyberLife Tower, Connor, so that we can negotiate a few terms. You have the maximum of an hour to turn up, and I think I should advise you that your refusal would be _very_ unwise." He pulled out his own gun from inside one of the pockets of his jacket, slowly fondling it in his hands at the same time as looking at Jenna for a couple of moments to indicate his words' implication. It was exactly what, a few weeks ago, Connor had warned her might happen if they were found by CyberLife. 

Before any of the rest of the group could do anything else, this youngest member out of the 3 teens was only able to give her friends another look in her eyes which was screaming 'help me' before Kamski walked out the still open door and Conrad, pulling her along with him in the headlock, followed close behind. 

The others peered out of the door and saw that the helicopter's blades were now back in motion again, as the pilot was beginning to boot up the mechanism at Elijah's command, and by now Jen had attempted with a huge amount of effort to make a run for it, which caused the android with three powers to, in order to even further reduce her chances of being able to achieve this, pick her up in bridal style and grip her tightly, all whilst maintaining the stony coldness written on his face. Mind you, she still struggled against him, but his grasp was so tight that for a moment she was convinced his body was made of solid metal instead of plastic, so eventually, as she took one last look behind him at the club building, where all her friends were, she caved in to the fact that there was no chance of escaping from what was happening right now and began to suppose every possibility of what might happen to her once they arrived at the Tower. As she felt a shiver run down her spine - a fearful and apprehensive one, in complete contrast to the exhilarating one she experienced a few minutes beforehand when she was with Connor outside the building - Kamski and Conrad climbed up into the helicopter. 

"That's it, I'm going out there." North declared to the other nine around her, making a beeline for the door and clenching one of her fists, with a few little bolts of electricity fizzing out of this fist.

"What are you doing?" Markus, looking at her, stuck his right arm out in front of her to block her way. 

"What do you _think_ I'm doing, Markus? We can't just do nothing while they take Jenna away." She snapped back, then trying to still make her way past his arm, but to no avail. 

"I know, I understand that we can't do nothing, but there are armed guards with them right now, so going out there to fight them will only end up getting you killed. What were you even planning on doing once you were outside? Fighting an entire group of guards who have assault rifles all by yourself? And Conrad would find some way of managing to deflect or completely destroy your attacks anyway." Said the RK200. 

She looked back at him with anger displayed on her features, although this was only for a short lapse of time, and she eventually cooled down and stepped back by a few inches after realising the validity of the point he'd just made.

"Well then what _are_ we going to do?" Eve spoke up.

Connor, who'd been completely quiet since his attempt to use his ability to hurl Ralph's knife at Conrad, replied with,  
"I'm doing what Kamski says: I'm going to the Tower."

"I don't know what he's planning but he's bound to have some kind of trick up his sleeve; going there is definitely _not_ the best idea." Said Kara. "There's got to be a better way."

"She's right, Connor. It's suicide to do what Kamski says." Markus agreed.

"What Kara's also right about is that there's a better way." Said the RK800. "Just trust me - I have a plan." 

"How long until we get back?" Kamski asked the pilot a minute or so later once the helicopter was now in flight, on its way to the Tower.

"An estimate of fifteen minutes, sir."

"Good, good. At least that means when we arrive there'll still be plenty of time left before Connor's deadline, and in that time we'll have delightful company." He glanced back at the girl sat behind him, near to the back of the helicopter's interior, who was in the corner with Conrad right next to her. The latter was still keeping the end of his gun focused on the side of her face, while, with her eyes still widened, she had her head turned away from him and she remained completely silent. 

She obviously didn't express it out loud, but in her dire situation, she tried her absolute very best to keep her racing heartbeat under control and a million thoughts ran through her brain: _This is the end_ and _What have I gotten myself into?_ as well as _What in God's name am I going to do now?_ and _Someone will come to get me, I'm sure of it. Someone's going to come for me._

It was nearly a minute later when Connor had finished explaining his plan to the others and had fully formulated the finer details of what he intended to do once he got to the Tower, during which they all listened intently and played out what he'd told them in their heads. 

"If I go as soon as possible, preferably in the next few minutes, then there's less chance of not meeting Kamski's deadline and that means as a result there'll also be less chance of Jenna getting killed." He said. 

"There's just one problem with your plan, though: I know there are no better ideas about what else we can do, but by going there you're still taking a _**huge**_ gamble." Said Andrea. "If you go there, even if Kamski doesn't try to kill you and he really does want to 'negotiate some terms' with you something bad's still bound to happen to you." 

"There is a high probability." The brown eyed male android nodded his head by a small fraction in understanding, and then he added, "But statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place." He blinked once and then turned around to face the door, which was still marginally open, allowing the soft Summer afternoon sunlight to spill through it. "I understand that the odds of some kind of bad event happening to me are very high - it's a foregone conclusion - but she's my friend. She, along with you, Eve, Arthur and Hank, is one of the few humans who's shown kindness to me, and now it's time for me to do the same in return." He turned his head to look at them as well as slightly rotating his body as a whole in order to accomplish this.

Hank, finding himself admiring his courage, looked at him for a moment or two along with the rest of the group, before he enquired, "But what if something goes wrong, Connor? What if you don't succeed in this?" 

The one he'd addressed continued to hold on to the gaze he was maintaining on them, firm and already giving off an aura of determination, and the following words came from his mouth after a second:  
"Failure isn't an option. I must and **_will_** succeed, Lieutenant."

"I'll teleport you there like you said." Kara told him, this being part of his plan that he'd informed them of, and she stepped forwards closer towards him.

"Good luck." Arthur bade him, looking around at the others with a slightly smaller degree of the same emotion and mindset Connor was experiencing pulsing through his own mind.

The AX400, like the male who she was now stood next to, turned back to look at the eight behind them and gave Alice a small, affirming nod to reassure her of the fact that she'd be back soon after assisting Connor with the first phase of the scheme.  
"I'll be back." The latter declared, and with these final words of parting, the others watched as he marched out of the door with Kara behind him, the coldness presented on his face and laced in his demeanour still burning behind his eyes. 

They closed the door fully shut again behind them, leaving the four humans and the same number of androids in that room with a hush falling down onto them all. A couple of moments of this stretched on into seconds, and the longer it went on, the more they were all gagging to ask a question that was forcing its way into their minds and then doing the same to their mouths. 

"So, what now?" Andrea was the one to give in to the question's aforementioned forceful exit. 

"We're goning go ahead with the rest of Connor's plan, so me, Markus and Hank are going to the Tower, too, and when Kara gets back you can stay here while we're gone." Said North.

"What if not all six of us have to stay behind?" Arthur tested the sound of an idea he'd just gained.

"What d'you mean...?" Hank, beginning to have a feeling about what this idea of his was, enquired. 

"I could come with you." 

"We could, as well!" Added Eve, with Andrea nodding in agreement. 

"Nope, not happening." The male who'd previously spoken before Andrea's boyfriend quickly shot the idea down.

"Why not?" The middle born blonde raised her eyebrows. 

"'Why not' she says..." He chuckled to himself before launching into the reason for his answer: "'Cause it's _dangerous_. You said it yourself, Andrea, Connor's already taking a huge gamble, and so are the three of us. These two are only coming with me 'cause they have superpowers they can defend themselves with." He motioned towards himself, North and Markus. "We don't need to offer CyberLife any _more_ people to hurt!" 

"But we could help! Just ask us to do something and we'll do it!" The brunette herself protested. 

" _ **No**_ damn way; didn't you hear what I just said? You three could get _killed_! And I don't wanna deal with three dead innocent people on my conscience, thanks." Hank shouted back.

"Come on, it's a pretty simple job: we arrive at the Tower, we sneak up behind a few guards, knock them out and steal their key cards or ID tags or whatever, simple." Said Eve.

"We've told you before about how CyberLife guards are armed, so haven't you thought about the fact that they have guns?" North quirked her eyebrows as she asked this, taking the same viewpoint that this was too perilous a task for them. Markus, unsure about which side of the discussion to take, remained quiet. 

"Yeah, we have remembered that, North. And that's the reason behind why we'd be **_sneaking_**." Retorted the frizzy-haired blonde.

"Look, we promise you we can help. Like I said, just tell us what to do and we'll gladly do it." Added Andrea. 

"What I'm askin' you to do is to stay here, _out_ of the danger." Said Hank. 

"That's not a viable option for us." Arthur responded. "Our _friend_ is in that Tower, Lieutenant. I may have only known her for a couple of years but she's still someone whose company I've grown to enjoy. All three of us are her friends, and we might not have superpowers or guns but it's still our duty to be part of the effort to save her." 

"And from what I can remember, Arthur's got some cricket bats and melee weapons like that at his flat that we could use. Please, Hank." The twenty-four year old Briton's girlfriend said. 

The fifty-two year old was starting to take what the trio of other humans had told him into account and was genuinely weighing up the possibility of allowing them to come, although it was something that he was reluctant about. The two answers about what to do went into war against each other inside his head, both presenting many good points and making it a rather interesting battle but also rendering it an even tougher decision for him to reach, because after all, it meant there were more lives at stake. 

Hank's eyebrows had been furrowed throughout these few seconds of thinking, him beginning to step down one path before he went back and considered walking down the other, this resulting in an endless cycle of constantly switching between the two choices, and then he answered, with a small sigh at the beginning of his first sentence, 

"Fine, screw it - you can come." 

**_ [Background score:] _ **

The trio's faces lit up at his reply. "Thanks. We'll do our best." Eve told him, now suddenly finding herself electrified with an abrupt burst of adrenaline. 

He nodded before adding, "But you can only come on two conditions: one, you do exactly what I tell you to do, and two, and I can't stress this one enough, we _all_ _stick **together**_. Okay?" 

They gave quick nods of their heads in acknowledgement of his pair of conditions.

"When she gets back, Ralph and the little one will stay here with Kara." Ralph informed the others in addition. 

Markus and North, at the same time this took place, were thinking about every event that had unfolded in the last few minutes, and the plot they were about to take part in also caused them to be on the receiving end of an energising burst originating from the back of their heads. One which they found both thrilling and frightening. 

About ten minutes later, the rooftops of the outer borders of the city were just beginning to come into view as two figures, hand in hand, ran across the woods in the faraway valley surrounding the club building, occasionally leaping across the tops of a few of the trees.

These figures were both androids, one of them a female with a blonde pixie cut, whose teleportation ability was responsible for them being able to cover so much ground in so little time piece by piece, and the other being a male, whose short, neat dark brown hair had a few strands of it dangling slightly over the left side of his forehead and whose reason for holding the female's hand was so that she could teleport both of them at the safe time; she was capable of teleporting a maximum of two other people as well as herself by maintaining physical contact with them. 

A few times, these tall branches of the trees whipped harshly against their faces and the rest of their bodies, although when I say the word 'harshly', I mean it only to a small degree, and as a result it barely bothered them. To the duo, it was nothing more than a tiny, if not non-existent, obstacle. 

Connor, calculating that at their current speed there was roughly twenty-five minutes left until they arrived near to the CyberLife Tower, gazed off into the distance at where it was - a tall, thin little speckle that was shaped like an upwards-standing stick with a rounded tip - and the frostiness in his eyes faintly intensified. 

He was going to safely retrieve Jenna from Conrad, Kamski and his men even if his own life was lost in the process, he was as sure of that as he was of his own name. 


	34. Episode 12: Into the Lion's Den [Part 1/3]

"Okay, so, laid out on this table here are all the melee weapons I have." Arthur, stood inside the kitchen in his flat a mile away from the village, told Eve, Hank, North, Andrea and Markus; they were all gathered around the kitchen table, where the twenty-four year old had put down numerous different sports bats which he'd retrieved from his wardrobe that was perched in a corner of the room, and it was now nearly ten minutes since Connor had gone on his way to the CyberLife Tower, with Kara's assistance, to initiate the plan to rescue Jenna. Kara still hadn't returned to the club building just yet. "Cricket bats, baseball bats, a few rounders ones and I'm not completely sure whether this one'll be that useful but a tennis racket as well." 

"Where'd you get all these?" Hank asked him, his eyes slightly widened at seeing how many of these bats there were overall. 

"Arthur used to be in his secondary school's rounders and cricket club, and I still can't fully remember where he got the tennis racket from." Said Andrea. 

**_ [Background score:] _ **

"Looks like we should arm ourselves." Eve declared to her fellow humans who were under the age of thirty, and with this, the hands of those three made a beeline for the weapons in front of them, the blonde briefly picking up the tennis racket before, upon taking a closer look at it, she soon put it back down again after realising that in terms of its effectiveness in combat, the most accurate word to describe it was 'meh'. She then picked up one of the rounders bats and appeared to be more pleased with this.   
By the time the trio were done selecting their weapons, they all had two each - Arthur had two baseball bats, Eve's were a rounders one and a cricket one, although they looked very similar so there was nearly no difference, and Andrea's pair were both cricket bats.

"What about you, Hank? Are you sure you don't want to take any of these as a weapon as well as your gun?" The brunette queried.

"I've already got another weapon with me." He replied with a smile on his face as, along with the revolver he used earlier, he additionally pulled out another one, from his pocket, which was identical.

"You have _two_ of those?" Now it was Andrea's turn to widen her eyes. 

"I only use both of 'em when I really need to, 'cause that way I'm saving one in case the other runs outta bullets and it also takes the person I'm aiming them at by surprise." 

"D'you think Connor's gotten to the Tower by now?" Asked Eve, the atmosphere of concern and slight apprehension quickly overtaking the one of exhilaration, which had been the previous one in effect. 

"I don't know, he's possibly almost there, somewhere around halfway." Markus answered. "I take it you and Andrea aren't going to go back to your homes until this job is done?" 

"Yeah - it took a lot of thinking about the fact that our parents' heads are probably going to explode because of us not getting home on time, which is at five, but basically that's right. We have a bigger thing to worry about right now, so at five I'll turn off my phone as well." 

"Me too." Added the older of the two human females. 

"Good. Nothing can be allowed to interrupt us once we arrive there, because like you said yourself, it's the matter that's most important right now." North nodded her head to a small degree. "There's a chance that by now Kamski and Conrad have returned to the Tower with Jenna, and based on Markus' answer to your question I don't think Connor's that far behind, which means we need to leave now, too." 

"Off to the CyberLife Tower we go, then." Hank masterfully span one of the revolvers in his hand before putting them both back into his pockets. Arthur, Andrea and Eve proudly wielded the melee weapons they'd chosen, beginning to experience that burst of exciting adrenaline once again, whose turn it was to overhaul the previously mentioned ambience of uneasiness that had been creeping into action during the conversation. 

Another ten minutes later, the sound of an arm colliding with a person's face, swiftly and with such a large amount of force that the person's head jerked to one side upon impact, resounded inside Kamski's office at the Tower. This CEO himself was stood off to the side, leaning against the wall and watching this happen, with a combination of two emotions which partially cancelled each other out rushing through his brain and allowing a small part of themselves to show up on his facial features; hostility and an unsympathetic demeanour took up the majority of his current mindset, while a small portion of sadistic pleasure, however, populated the remainder. 

"What did I miss?" Perkins walked into the office through its door. 

"She apparently decided to make a remark about my mother which I'd deem as rated R-18. Rather surprising for a sixteen or possibly even fifteen year old to be coming out with..." Elijah told him, with Chloe and Captain Allen both stood around him in this same room and with Conrad being the one who was responsible for the slap which created the sound.

"Uh, yeah I think you got the _first_ one right about my age." Retorted Jenna snarkily. She was the type of person who had a lot of sass stored up for when she was in a situation, and as you can tell she was unleashing this sass at her captors. She very much doubted that anyone had spoken to Kamski like this very often, if ever, and now she was giving him an idea of what it sounded like to have someone lash back out at him. 

"You've got a pretty quick mouth there; maybe you should put your brain first?" Remarked Perkins. For the last few minutes, she'd been tied down to a chair with some of the same black leather straps that CyberLife used to restrain their androids during experiments, with her hands and forearms behind the chair and with her ankles fastened to the chair's legs, along with the middle of her torso secured to the chair in addition for good measure. 

"Yeah, well, doing that isn't as fun." The girl plastered a big, mocking smile across her face. "And anyway, I don't see why you lot are still sitting pretty - someone's most likely right behind us, ready to come in here with guns blazing, and by 'someone', I mean the one who you told to come here within an hour or else you'd blow my brains out." 

"You're right, by now Connor most likely _is_ nearby." Conrad answered, placing his hands behind his back formally. "Although when he does get here it'd be just as unwise for him to come in 'with guns blazing' as you put it as it'd be for him to just not arrive at all."

"Yes, yes, I get it, your abilities are so much better than his and the others', resistance is futile, blah blah blah, I ** _know_**."

"Although you are right, he's the most advanced android we've created because of the amount of power he has." Said Kamski proudly. "You know, here we have a special classification of androids who possess abilities no other one has; we call it the Alpha-class. Conrad and one other are the only two androids ever to have belonged in that category." He slowly turned to his left so as to face the RT600 standing next to him, the latter barely reacting in any way as he then gently, almost not touching her face at all, caressed her cheek while they both looked straight into each other's souls. "Chloe's second ability that she has as well as technopathy is also one not possessed by any of the others, which makes her the other Alpha-class android alongside Conrad. Because I thought I might as well make the effort, especially since she's the first one ever created." The movements of the hand he was using to caress her face ceased, although it still remained in that same place. "Chloe is the very first of her kind, activated six years ago. The first android." 

"Oh yeah? And what _is_ the android queen's second power? The one that you're apparently claiming is the one you decided to put the effort into giving her?" 

"Huh. The 'android queen'. I like that term; I suppose you are the queen of the others because of you being the first, my dear." He ignored Jenna's question and he addressed the female with the blonde ponytail herself. 

"Either way, getting back to the matter at hand, when Connor gets here, if he resists then the odds against him aren't going to be very friendly." Captain Allen said. 

"Yeah. Because you've created a version of him who doesn't bother asking questions or daring to think for himself, someone who you basically think of as Connor 2.0: plus the amount of power, and also height, but minus his morality." The bespectacled human with the mousy hair commented. Her legs were trembling slightly once again thanks to her growing nervousness and unease caused by lacing her tone with even more venom than she'd done until now. "A stupid little slave, blindly obeying every single instruction he's given. In fact, I'm willing to bet money that when, someday, even _**his**_ powers aren't good enough for you, Conrad'll just merrily trot right into the slaughterhouse if he's told to." 

Her tone was so frosty and her expression was so forbidding that she could feel her words physically burning behind her face, and it was only within the time space of a split second when Conrad was upon her - he was almost instantaneously a couple of inches away from her face, making half of her aforementioned expression melt away in startlement whilst his own was taking over its role, with his left hand roughly gripping the front of the neck area of the Hawaiian shirt she was wearing. 

"Maybe if I sliced off your lower jaw you'd finally stop talking." The RK900 said to her, his voice no higher than a mutter, while at the same time he raised his other hand, closed up the other fingers except for the middle and index ones, and these two outstretched fingers tensed up as he partially used his slicing ability he'd just mentioned on one of her exposed forearms, specifically the right one. She tried to stop herself, she truly did, but she nevertheless winced as this power of his created a long gash on one side of her forearm which wasn't too deep but still allowed some drops of her scarlet blood to come seeping out. This creation of the gash felt like a small but intense, white-hot fire blazing on her arm, with the person responsible for it continuing to make it stretch down even further without any sign of emotion showing up on his face except for his irises shrinking ever so slightly, this being because of him experiencing one subtle feeling prompted by seeing her in pain:

Pleasure. 

"Captain Allen, this is Agent 54. Agent 54 to Captain Allen." Conrad was interrupted, making him stop extending the gash he'd created on Jenna's arm, as the sound of a voice coming from Allen's radio communicator on his belt was heard saying this.

"Go ahead." The latter human picked it up from where it had been on his belt and he pressed one of the buttons on the side to make a reply. 

"There's an android here who's claiming that he was told to come to the Tower, and he said his name's Connor." 

It was only to a small degree, but Jenna perked up, while Conrad and Kamski shared a look between each other and Perkins placed one of his hands onto the gun on his own belt. Chloe uncomfortably diverted her gaze over to the corner of the floor. 

"Send him up to us, we're on the top floor. Mr. Kamski's been expecting him." Allen told him. 

"Understood, sir." 

"Looks like you were right: it seems he really was right behind us." Elijah addressed the only female human in the room. "So it's time to set up a little welcoming committee." His sly, chilling smile made a reappearance as he picked up his gun from on top of his desk, with Allen cocking his assault rifle and Perkins picking up his own gun from his belt as well. 

"Wait what? You told him you wanted him here so that you could 'negotiate terms' with him!" Said Jenna in surprise. 

"Oh don't be so naive. Do you believe _everything_ that adults say?" Perkins responded to her in a manner which screamed 'condescending'.

"Think of this as like a chess game; once the king falls, the opposing side automatically wins the game, and that's the same principle I'm using." Said Kamski. "Connor is that king piece, which means once he's gone, dealing with the others will be a lot easier, because his telekinesis power has shown itself to be strong enough to be able to protect them. And in order to eliminate him for this reason, we needed to lure him here by using another of the pieces."

"You g-"

"I hope you're not going to make another insult." Conrad cut her off before she could get the last word out, and she felt obliged to obey as his coiled up eeriness was unfurling again, his icy grey eyes piercing into her pair of blue ones whilst he pulled his gun out of the left pocket of his jacket. "I'm genuinely beginning to get aggravated every time you speak, Miss Kaufmann." He turned around to face the door and cocked his gun, before asking, "Elijah, when this 'little brother' of mine gets up here, may I be the one to kill him?" 

"I'm afraid not, Conrad. I'm going to have to ask you to hold your horses in that respect, but once he's been shot down by Allen, Perkins and a few guards, I'll allow you to dismember his body if you wish." 

The girl was already growing internally terrified of what awaited her in the next few minutes, because once Connor was gone and they'd therefore have no more use for her they were bound to kill her, but she felt a small part of the back of her throat gag at the thought of what Kamski had just authorised the taller of the two 'brothers' to do. 

Meanwhile, down on the Tower's ground floor, three of the guards (one of them being the one who'd spoken to Allen via his radio communicator a minute ago) were marching down the entrance corridor with an android in the middle of them, one guard being in front of him and two behind. All three humans were, like the others, carrying assault rifles in their hands and their aura of raw intimidation affected anyone within a radius of ten feet.

The pace of this android being escorted between them temporarily slowed down by a fraction as he looked up at his surroundings, at the clinical whiteness of the walls and the smooth grey ceiling, both of which soon giving way to a much larger room where a marble sculpture of CyberLife's logo was located slap bang in the centre, with two elevators being on either side of this cavernous room - one on the left hand side from where the end of the entrance corridor opened out into the room, and the other on the right hand side. This Tower was the place where he was 'born', and after he escaped almost a month ago he thought he'd never be returning again, that he'd have established a hideout far away where he'd be out from under CyberLife's shadow and he'd have then been able to wash his hands of the entire thing. What was happening right now clearly served as evidence that this thought hadn't quite gone according to plan, and he despised the fact that he was currently back inside a place which he'd vowed to not ever even see again for the rest of his days. 

"Move it, tin can!" One of the guards behind him ordered, roughly shoving the end of his assault rifle against the back of the person he was addressing because of his pace slowing down during the previous paragraph. 

"Thanks, but I'm quite capable of making my _own_ way." Knowing that Kamski wanted him alive for now, Connor therefore turned around without being afraid of talking back to a guard and he used a couple of his fingers to push the end of the gun away. His tone was calm but, as they'd been for a little bit over the last twenty minutes, his eyes were cold.

"Goddamn androids." The other guard behind the RK800 commented semi-quietly to the one next to him. 

Within another few seconds, the group of four had reached the elevator on the left hand side and they stepped inside it after its door had slid open, caused by the front guard pressing the button which was programmed to make this sliding door open. Behind them, the rest of the ground floor was populated by a few guards here and there as well as an almost equal number of men and women, mostly men, in lab coats, talking to each other with clipboards either being clutched in their hands or hugged under their arms. 

"Agent 54, Level 30." The aforementioned guard who'd been in front of Connor spoke into the voice recognition technology once all four of them were fully in the elevator. It was spacious enough to allow them to fit inside without them being pressed up against each other. 

"Voice recognition validated. Access authorised." The automated female computer voice responded, and afterwards the elevator's door slid shut again and they were then moving upwards, on their way to this floor.

A stony silence settled over the three humans and the android populating the inside of the elevator, one which took no time in displaying how ominous it was, during which, as they moved upwards at a speed which was neither slow nor lightning-fast, one of the things Connor noticed was that there were no CCTV cameras of any kind in the elevator. Upon remembering it from when he was still imprisoned here, another thing he realised was that it was only in this elevator and the other one where there were no cameras; they were the Tower's blind spots when it came to security. 

It took another few seconds, but he waited a tiny bit longer until the elevator he and the three guards were in was higher up, in order for it to be at an angle that wouldn't allow people from down below to see what was about to happen, and then he seized his window of opportunity. It was now or never. 

Connor quickly rushed towards the guard on his left and, using his knee and his hands, he rammed that guard against the elevator's wall, managing to kick away one of the other two behind him but then finding himself being held in place by the other one who'd been behind him. 

"Restrain it!" Barked this one holding him firmly in place and stopping him from being able to move, and the other one behind Connor, who he'd kicked away, moved to grab him in the same manner, proving to be half successful in this. 

The android, in turn, kicked out one of his feet against the head of the third guard, the one who he'd rammed against the wall a couple of moments ago, before telekinetically yanking that guard's pistol off of his belt and into his right hand, which all took place in only two seconds. He then raised that gun and fired it, the bullet going straight through the guard's head and making him fall down to the floor, the life from his body instantly leaving; the shot caused bright red blood to splatter up the wall behind him and onto the area of the floor around where his body now was. After this, Connor used every single piece of force within himself, as well as also using his telekinetic ability again to help, to ram backwards into one of the other walls, which pushed the two remaining guards trying to hold him in place into the wall, too. Fortunately, it was done with so much force that it gave him a chance to dislodge their grip from his torso, and one of them ducked down out of the way as Connor did a three hundred and sixty degree turn so that he could move his arms into the correct position like in the gif at the top and he then, with his arms over the top of his head, fired the gun once again, this time with it being fired behind him, through the head of the guard who hadn't ducked down. Knelt down on the floor, Connor swiftly aimed the gun in the direction of the other guard, who was beginning to stand back up and move towards him, and the trigger was pulled for the third time.

He calmly, elegantly got back up into his feet, putting the gun he'd acquired into one of his jacket's pockets while his LED switched back into its normal blue colour, because throughout the fight sequence above, it'd been yellow. 

All three of the corpses around him had caused the parts of the floor around them as well as the bottom of the walls near to them to be caked in blood, and it was very unnoticeable but there were one or two small droplets of it on the bottom of Connor's left trouser leg. Back in the present moment, however, he realised that the elevator was still moving upwards to the 30th floor, with this destination now being very near, so he moved towards the voice recognition panel next to the sliding door in front of him, pressing his hand onto the button that activated it. 

"Please indicate you're identity and destination." It said. 

"Agent 54, Level -1." Connor spoke in the exact same voice as the guard he was claiming to be, due to the software of androids created from five years ago onwards allowing them to replicate another person's voice by mimicking their sound and speech pattern. 

"Voice recognition validated. Access authorised." The technology seemed to be none the wiser, and this new instruction caused the elevator to stop in its tracks and then start moving downwards, back towards the ground floor on its way to one of the two floors concealed underground, where everything to do with androids was hidden away from the public eye. 

He knew that Kamski had asked him to come to the Tower for 'negotiation' but what he also knew, based on how well he was aware of his behaviour, was that this previously mentioned CEO had no intention of playing fair - if Elijah had access to a method which allowed him to get rid of an escaped android, then he'd be sure to use it, and Connor very much doubted that he'd dismiss this chance. The latter had, as a result of this reasoning, just taken action to prevent his death, because he had a feeling there'd be an unpleasant surprise waiting for him when he arrived at the thirtieth floor. 

He waited, stood there in the elevator with the dead bodies of the three guards who'd escorted him being strewn on the floor, for his arrival at the first of the underground levels, his eyes still narrowed by a couple of degrees and with his objective still firmly in his mind, which he'd told the others about in his plan earlier: not only was he going to save Jenna, but he was additionally going to bring down CyberLife and make sure that they'd never hurt anyone ever again, his fellow androids included. 


	35. Episode 12: Into the Lion's Den [Part 2/3]

Outside, on the ground floor, there were two men in black suits and ties keeping guard at the front gate like a few weeks ago, when Hank came to the Tower, with them both each having a pistol in one of their hands. They were different ones than the previously mentioned pair who'd been there about three weeks ago, but they nonetheless withheld every gate guard's standards of how to be well and truly intimidating even from a distance of about thirteen feet, and if you were in their company at this present moment, my reader, I'd love to see you try to deny this.

In the quietness and calm atmosphere of the still young Friday evening, the duo of black-suited male humans were stood outside the main gate, staring out into the distance in front of them; a few seconds ago, one of them had lit a cigarette and he was now holding it in his mouth as his only method of passing the time. 

"You do know those things are bad for your lungs, right?" The other one, to the left of him, said, breaking the silence between them. He could already smell the smoke emanating from it. 

"Hm. Didn't know you cared." The one with the cigarette in his mouth, who was one of the British employees at the Tower, remarked as he then used his right hand to take the cigarette out of his mouth and simply drop it onto the ground, squashing it beneath the toe area of his right shoe and therefore extinguishing the tiny little ember on the cigarette's tip. 

"Hey how's it going?" Suddenly, they heard the sound of a female voice coming from off to the side, which made their attention instantly snap in the voice's direction. The sight that they were met with was that of what appeared to be a woman, or a girl, rather, casually leaning against one of the gate's posts a few feet to the right of where they were while simultaneously straying far away from the actual fence itself, because of the sign adjacent to the gate that said, 'WARNING! ELECTRIC FENCE - 5,000 VOLTS'. She looked as if she was no older than her late teens, and her wild, frizzy hair was blonde in colour. 

"This is a restricted area." The British guard who'd been smoking a couple of moments ago raised his pistol halfway and took a few steps towards her, not assuming a hostile position just yet whilst the American one next to him also began to slowly move towards her. "You need authorisation from Mr. Kamski to be here or else we'll be forced to remove you from these premises." 

It was only four seconds later when both of the males were far enough away from the gate for two more to sneak up behind them, coming from off to the other side after being hidden there for the last thirty seconds, and this other pair were upon them as soon as they were close enough; they quickly used their hands and forearms to cover the suited guards' mouths in order for their yelling to not be heard by anyone else before using their other arms to punch them squarely in the side of their faces, this latter action being done in such a manner that it rendered the guards unconscious. 

"Well done." Arthur, coming up towards the gate from where he, North and Andrea had been hiding further down the small hill where the fence stretched, said. 

"Thanks. But that was just the first out of all the other stuff we've gotta face, so we're not out of the woods yet." Said Hank as he simultaneously knelt down towards the now knocked out guards and took both of their ID cards that had been hanging around their necks, handing one of them to Arthur and keeping the other one in his pocket. "These'll most likely get us through any door in the Tower, so we've gotta keep these with us."

With that, the group of six then proceeded to make their way up the road past the gate, after Arthur had opened it by momentarily placing the end of the stolen ID card he'd been given inside the scanning slot on one side of it, and went off to the left so as to avoid being seen by anyone from the front entrance as well as deciding that using the front door wasn't exactly the best plan of action - they couldn't just go merrily strolling up without being kicked off the property or possibly even captured like Jenna. 

"There's a vent over here." Andrea told the others quietly, the reason behind her partially keeping her voice down being so that if there was anyone else nearby who they were unaware of, they'd still avoid having their presence detected. 

They all crowded around her to see what she was referring to, coming face to face with, sure enough, what looked like an air vent in the side of the Tower's outer wall which was at roughly eye level with Markus. The vent's hatch, having three long, thin horizontal slits in it, was fully closed, although, after looking more closely for a moment, the four humans and the two androids noticed there was a small opening at the bottom that seemed like it was for the purpose of someone to place their hand there and open this hatch. 

Tentatively, Arthur stepped forwards and put his hand onto the opening at the bottom, pulling the hatch upwards just as hesitantly in case there was some kind of unpleasant surprise behind it until it was now fully open and it was leaning back against the outside wall above the vent. 

"I think the coast is clear; there doesn't seem to be that much activity inside." He told the other five after looking into the shaft that stretched out before him, which was completely devoid of anyone or anything and which reverberated the sound of the gentle gusts of wind that blew around them. 

"It looks like this is our best way in, then." Said Markus. "The only two questions are, who's going to go into it first? And will we be able to fit in there?" He was already analysing the dimensions of the vent's opening to be able to gain an idea about what the answer to his second question might be. 

"I'll go." Eve spoke up, with her body, as well as that of Arthur and Andrea, still tingling with raw adrenaline and excitement at the fact that she'd never done anything quite this dangerous or exhilarating before in her life, and as a result she was struggling to contain the trembling sensation in her legs. "Could you pair help me up?" She requested. 

The previously mentioned couple who were just as electrified as her put their hands together for the blonde to use as a step, placing one of her feet onto these hands, and then once she was in the correct position they hoisted her up and she used her elbows to pull the top half of her body into the vent. Although the one little snag that she ended up hitting only a few seconds after this - with the undersides of her arms shivering slightly because of her exhilaration combined with the coldness of the smooth, inner surfaces of the vent - was that she couldn't really wedge herself in any further, so she seemed to be stuck there, staring out at the rest of the shaft in front of her that looked like it stretched on for eternity. 

"I'm stuck!" She turned her head back slightly and called this out to the others. "Try pushing me." 

"Okay." Andrea acknowledged, with this brunette and her boyfriend attempting to shove her further into the vent, like she said, by grabbing hold of her legs and pushing with all their might, but with very little success. And I'm going to have to emphasise the word 'little' here for good measure. 

"Come on, push me!"

"We're trying!" Arthur yelled to her as he dug the heels of both of his feet into the ground so that he'd have extra traction for shoving even more forcefully. 

"Push harder! You're not doing it right!" Eve exclaimed. She was clawing at the bottom inner surface of the vent, beneath her arms, to acquire some traction of her own. 

"We genuinely have bad footing here, I think that's the main problem." The older of the two females called back. 

While this commotion was happening, the other three were calmly standing behind them in complete contrast, watching it all with expressions of a non-physical facepalm spread out across their features; in addition to displaying his expression of the aforementioned kind, Hank began to shake his head ever so slightly for the same reason. 

"In case you three hadn't noticed, there's a clear solution." North let out a tiny sigh before she stepped forwards and helped the two brown haired humans to yank Eve back out of the vent, then put both of her hands onto the sides of the vent hatch which was still fully open and, after having to use a little bit of force, she managed to pull the entire thing off of the vent, with the outer rim of where the hatch had been when it was closed also being a part of this thing that she removed. And now, the absence of the outer rim had rendered the opening of the vent larger in size, making it big enough for all of them to easily fit through. 

"Oh." Said Andrea in realisation at what she'd missed and at the fact that the commotion taking place just now had been redundant all along. 

"It seems I owe the people who made this vent a letter of apology." Added Arthur in the same manner, while in the background, Hank rolled his eyes towards the sky in a way that said, non-vocally, ' _We only started this plan a minute ago and these guys are already hopeless_.' 

Beneath them, meanwhile, a male figure was darting around the corridors of floor -1, the first of the pair of the Tower's underground floors, formulating a scheme in his mind about what he was going to do next because of coming down here on the spur of the moment, focusing on what was going on around him first before planning the details for what was yet to come. 

At one particular moment, when the male figure quickly but nonetheless elegantly ducked behind a corner of one of the walls as two scientists in their long, smooth white coats walked down the corridor, both of them being engaged in idle conversation, he chose this point in time to create an algorithmic map of what his course of action was going to be: upon peeking out from behind the wall by only a few degrees, he saw two more humans in lab coats, a male and a female, escorting another android the other way down the corridor with them both each having a gun in one of their hands, past all the countless rooms which played host to CyberLife's devices of experimentation. Just the brief thought of these was enough to make the figure cringe slightly in repulsion. 

Anyway, it was nothing more than five seconds later when his plan was fully formulated, and the duo of scientists escorting the other android had completely no idea what fate was about to befall them within the next few moments. 

It'd been a truly normal evening for them, repeating this same routine over and over again without any moral qualms, just like their coworkers, this routine being escorting the subjects, carrying out scientific procedures, returning them to their cells and taking the appropriate action against any of them who chose to resist - the same thing they'd done pretty much every day during their working lives for the last six years, with the only exception being a month ago, June 11th, which was the most fateful day they'd ever known or experienced. 

Until now.

They were abruptly met with the female getting whacked in the back of the head by something, causing her to yelp from the burst of pain as well as being startled, but neither of them had anywhere near enough time to properly react to it as the same happened to the male. The pair, as well as the android they'd been escorting, all turned around to see the cause of all this, although on the instant when they'd turned around, they both received another rough punch in the face, making them stumble back by a few steps. 

Connor had to think on his feet and predict her movements like he'd done a couple of minutes ago with the guards in the elevator, but he then, when the female's eyes narrowed maliciously and she fired two bullets in his direction one after the other, dodged them both whilst experiencing the feeling of the second one narrowly brushing against his shoulder and he used his telekinesis to pull the male's gun out of his hands as quickly as he could, bringing it into his own. In the space of one second, he raised it and pulled the trigger once it was aimed at the female scientist's forehead. 

The male's eyes widened in a blend of shock and disgust at what he'd just witnessed, and he then turned back the other way and began to sprint away to save himself; this still did a grand total of nothing to stop the RK800 from raising his right hand so as to use his ability again, this time utilising it for the purpose of focusing intently on the male human as the former caused a loud cracking noise to be heard. During the precise moment in which this sound was heard, the human emanated a loud shout of intense agony unlike anything he'd ever felt before, and he fell to the ground upon finding it unbearable to stand on both of his feet.

"My ankle! You broke my ankle!" He cried out on the floor, laid on his side at the same time as looking back at the person who'd been responsible for it. Judging by his accent, he was evidently one of the British ones. "Damn you!" If you heard him yell this part, you wouldn't be fully sure whether it was intended in a manner that was in despair or a display of anger, or somewhere on the threshold between the two, the latter being much more likely. 

Ignoring this, Connor turned towards the fellow android, a male one like him, who he'd effectively just saved from the duo of scientists. "Go, quickly, get out of here and run away as fast as you can. And be careful, there are guards in every corridor."

"Thank you." Said the other one in gratitude for what he'd done, showing a small smile. "But what about you? Aren't you going to run away, too?" 

"Not yet - there's a job I have to do down here first. I'm not intending on leaving here until that's done." After he answered with this, Connor spared one last glance at the scientist whose ankle he'd just telekinetically broken, looking at how pathetic he appeared to be right now, and during this his expression hardened into one of disdain. The other android watched with an equal measure of gratitude and awe as the former mentioned one walked off down the corridor, leaving behind the female scientist's corpse and the male who was lying still on the floor in helplessness. 

"Sir, Mr Kamski, sir! Please answer!" A couple of minutes later, Elijah's own radio communicator projected the voice of one of his researchers up in his office. 

"What is it?" Kamski picked it up from where it had been sitting on his desk and answered. 

"There's a situation going on down here, on Level -1. A minute ago, there was an android here - Dr. Haiton's dead, the other android we were escorting has escaped, and he broke my ankle, sir! Based on what I saw, I think his ability is telekinesis." 

Conrad whipped around to face Elijah upon hearing this, with the latter's eyes widening by a small smount, Chloe perking up a little bit and Jenna doing nothing to stop a grin from gradually blossoming on her lips. 

"Did you see what his model number was, Rathborne?" The CEO enquired to double check. 

"I did, sir, on his jacket. It was RK800." 

Now, whilst the others in the room were showing clear non-vocal signs of surprise, the female human was leaning her head back because of her grin evolving into a feeling of relief mixed in with pleasure at the fact that she'd been right after all - he really had come into the Tower with guns blazing like she'd said earlier. 

"Don't move, just stay there for now and I'll send a security team to catch him and then dispose of him." Elijah ended the conversation.

"Yes sir." The thirty-six year old put the radio communicator back down next to him on the desk as the one on the other end of the line replied shakily, still trying to mentally process what had happened to him. 

"If I were you I'd pack your bags and start running for the hills as fast as you possibly can, Kamski." Jenna remarked, tilting her head by a few degrees in the same current emotion as the one that was causing her huge, satisfied smirk. 

"And if I were you I wouldn't begin looking like you've just won the Nobel Prize yet." He retorted in a manner that was marginally snappy. "We're not done with you, so I wouldn't advise thinking that you're automatically saved just because Connor's still walking around." His previously mentioned snappiness mostly melted out of existence as he turned his head towards the RK900 a few feet away, being replaced by that familiar slight air of ominous malevolence. "Conrad, take her down to Level -1; I have an idea that we possibly might be able to use to our advantage." 


	36. Episode 12: Into the Lion's Den [Part 3/3]

Connor's smart black shoes gently tapped against the polished, darker black tiles of the floor beneath his feet - the ceiling and floor tiles up on the ground floor and above were grey, but that of the two underground levels were midnight black in colour with the walls still being a clinical white - and the sound that was being created by this was just as soft. Although, if the magnitude of the sound was meant to reflect his inner moods then it'd be one of the most blatant lies you could ever imagine; that ember deep inside himself which had sparked into life over half an hour ago was still burning, after having grown into a blaze, and it was the fuel his mind was currently running on ever since he left the club building earlier, the percentage by which it had diminished in the time after that being a firm 0. 

"There it is!" The voice of a male human was heard yelling this as the android continued to walk down the corridor at a brisk yet simultaneously graceful pace, who soon stopped in his tracks and stood there, looking out at the sight of the voice's owner stepping into the corridor from previously being inside one of the rooms lining it. It was almost immediately after this when about a dozen and a half more scientists also ran out of these rooms and into the hallway, over half of them carrying pistols in their hands.

_**[Background score:]** _

"You're right - it's that android Kamski warned us about a minute ago." Another one of them, a British one who was stood in the centre of them all and who appeared to be the most formally-dressed, added while turning his irises in front of him to focus on Connor. "Wait until it tries to run or resist against us, because then it'll be more memorable." His expression was cold, but his tone and his words were both laced with whimsy that was put across in an eerie manner. "What, isn't the machine of the moment going to say something? Anything at all?" This last part additionally contained a chuckle.

"I have nothing to say to you, Dr. Sambrooke." The fellow male he'd just addressed replied in a tone of voice which was borderline monotonous.

"Well then, if you're not going to be bothered speaking..." The human said before returning his focus to the other scientists around him, populating the rest of the corridor in front of Connor. "When he runs away or comes within a few feet, feel free to open fire." 

Connor, covertly removing the gun he'd acquired a few minutes ago from his jacket's right pocket, kept his facial expression exactly the same and remained silent as he started walking forwards again at the same pace as before. 

" _Fire!_ " Sambrooke ordered, but the RK800 already had a plan: he raised his pistol and shot two of the ones holding their own guns in both shoulders, making them scream in pain and instantly drop them, and, whilst still calmly walking, he used this as a distraction for him to telekinetically throw the others' guns out of their hands and away behind them, down the hallway. A few weeks ago, he would've found this to be more of a difficult feat, but his superpower, just like any skill, was able to be improved via practice, and in the time since then he'd been putting it to relatively frequent use so now he found the job of moving more than one object at once much easier. 

Lifting up his own gun once again, he then pulled the trigger when it was aimed at the left shoulder of a female scientist, who stepped in front of the others in some kind of attempt to stop him. She dropped to the ground in the agony from the wound, her mouth momentarily opening but with only a little bit of sound coming out - she was trying her best, and only half succeeding, to suppress a scream. 

Connor ignored all of this and still walked on, a couple of the humans running away in fright, with the others remaining where they were so as to hold their ground, unknowing of how futile that course of action was about to prove itself to be. 

three more took their places in front of him to form a blockade of sorts, all males, who were each dealt with in different methods: for the one on the left, Connor used his ability for non-physically snapping his neck, creating a loud cracking sound that made a few of the others feel sick to their stomachs for a split second, he quickly afterwards shot the one on the right in the abdomen area, and to finish, he raised his left hand and kept his thumb, index and middle fingers out with the others curled in as he utilised his power to fling the one in the middle through the wall to the left, rotating this hand of his in the same direction as he did so. This latter one let out a yell of panic in the time when it was happening, but it completely ceased as soon as he impacted with the wall, his body then falling down to the floor like the other two with a part of that wall now being a mess of broken tiles. 

At this point a few more of the others decided to make a run for it while they still could - it was no matter to Connor at this current moment, because Sambrooke was his main target - despite the remaining four still choosing to stand proudly in the face of their enemy even after what they'd just seen. One of them pulled the trigger of his pistol once he had it named at Connor's right shoulder, and for the first time in the last few minutes since he'd arrived at the Tower, the latter got genuinely hurt, because the bullet hit its target, making Thirium spill out of the front of his shoulder and prompting the android himself to gasp in pain, clenching his teeth. 

The person who'd fired this bullet, for a couple of moments, smiled in satisfaction at seeing that one of them out of him and his cohorts managed to do at least some damage to Connor, although this was short-lived due to the latter, after spending the last few seconds looking at the fresh wound, turning his head back in the direction of the former with his eyebrows even more narrowed than they were before. 

"Oh..." This human said quietly to himself, his eyes going wide as he remembered that androids were less susceptible to feeling pain, even when they were shot. Connor compensated by, with a simple motion of his hand, breaking his right arm with his ability and then punching him in the side of the face with such magnitude that it made him fall to the ground, both in quick succession. He followed up with shooting the one next to Sambrooke in both shoulders and one of his shins, and last but certainly not least, he raised his gun up to the forehead of Sambrooke himself.

"Well? Aren't _you_ going to say something, doctor?" The telekinetic remarked coldly as a retort to what he was asked a minute ago, and when eight seconds passed in which the person he was aiming his pistol at didn't answer at all and his heart was beating faster than its normal pace in fear, his heart stopped beating altogether as he was met with a bullet straight through his head. 

Reminding himself of his main objective that was still ahead of him, Connor took one of the dead scientists' guns as a spare in case he didn't have enough time later on to put more bullets inside the one he already had if it ran out, before he turned back around to where he'd previously been walking down the corridor and continued in that direction, leaving behind the scene he'd just created which included red blood up some areas of the walls and a few very shaken scientists who were still alive, but on the floor, unable to move and barely able to speak from the intense agony surging through their veins. 

"How much further?" Andrea enquired, keeping her voice down as she crawled through the vent she and the others had found a couple of minutes ago. It was indeed big enough to allow them all to fit through, but it was proving itself to nonetheless be a little bit of a tight squeeze. 

"I don't know for certain, but based on my estimate I think it's only another minute until we reach the Tower's centre." Answered Markus, who was holding out his left hand in front of him with a small flame alight in its palm which he was using to help the others behind him, as well as himself, see better in the darkness of the vent shaft. He was at the front of the pack, with Arthur behind him, Andrea next, Eve behind her, North being in the fifth position and Hank being at the back, these six deciding on this formation so that the ones who were more vulnerable in combat, Eve and Andrea, were packed into the middle with the two who were the strongest and most experienced, Hank and Markus, being at the front and back to protect the others in between them in case someone found the open vent where they'd entered. 

" _Wow_ this is a long vent..." Commented Eve; she and the other five were keeping their voices down, because by now they'd passed a few grates beneath them, underneath which there were corridors inside the Tower with scientists and guards walking up and down them, so this was to steer clear of the risk of being heard and attracting unwanted attention. "When we get to the centre, what exactly are we going to do, again?" 

"The centre is most likely to be where there are more guards and researchers who have information about, and access to, where Jenna's being held, and then we can go to save her." Said North. "We'll also have strength in numbers because of Connor's plan to release all of the androids underground who are still captive, so that'll cause a distraction for those researchers and guards once we've found out where she is." 

"And it'll also mean those captive androids will finally get the chance to stand up to CyberLife like you did during the breakout a month ago?" Arthur added. 

"Exactly." 

"Answer me honestly here, but have you three ever actually won a fight before?" Hank queried, addressing the Briton, his girlfriend and the blonde all at once. 

The trio of humans under the age of thirty gave their replies to this question simultaneously, Arthur and Eve's being "No" whilst Andrea's was "Yeah".

"Wait, what?" The female with the frizzy hair quirked her eyebrows when she picked up on the half-red-dyed brunette's answer. 

"When did you win a fight?" The latter-mentioned female's boyfriend displayed the same facial expression and vocal tone of equal confusion and intrigue as he turned his head back by a few degrees to look at her. 

"I think it was when I was about six or seven, I can't remember exactly, at my primary school in France: one of the boys looked up my skirt in the playground one morning, so he then got beaten up for it, courtesy of yours truly." She beamed proudly at this memory - it had taken place a decade ago, but its experience was still fresh in her mind. "The visit to the headmaster's office afterwards was _definitely_ still well worth it."

"Everyone stop just for a second." Markus suddenly halted where he was and held up his other hand, making the others do what he said and stop dead still.

"What is it?" Said Arthur. 

"If I assume correctly, I think we've reached the centre now. And look down there." The RK200 reduced his volume even lower to nothing more than a whisper while he pointed downwards with his index finger, at where they could see another corridor through yet another grate he was in front of. In addition, he quickly extinguished the flame in his other hand. 

"Scientists." Said the one who'd spoken previously before him, also adopting a whisper as the level of how loud his voice now was. "I bet a few of those know where Jenna is like you said, North, so if one or two of us could go down there and attract the attention of a few of them, and find some way of getting them to tell us where Jen's being held, the rest of us can sneak up behind them and finish the job of knocking them out." 

"Which ones of us are going to be the ones who go first, though?" Asked Eve, to which the other five in front of and behind her began to engage in deep thought. 

"There's an emergency situation on Level -1: an android down there's setting the others on that floor free and causing all kinds of carnage to anyone who stands in its way - it's one of the telekinetic ones, and it's also got a gun, so kill it on sight. Repeat: kill the android on sight, do _**not**_ allow it to escape." One of these scientists down in the corridor below the vent shaft spoke through his radio communicator to the others throughout the building as he and a few of them around him hurriedly made a beeline for the direction which lead to one of the Tower's elevators, as well as the staircase that also lead underground. 

"Hey guys." A deep, masculine voice from behind them spoke out all of a sudden, startling them ever so slightly, to which they whipped around a hundred and eighty degrees to see two fellow humans, albeit strangers, stood there right in front of them. 

"How the hell did you get in here?" The one who'd just used his radio communicator said in surprise, pulling out his gun from where it had previously been on his belt; a couple of the others behind him did the same. "This area of the CyberLife Tower is restricted to all outsiders unless Mr. Kamski has given you clearance to be here." 

"Yeah, Kamski's given us clearance." Hank, stood next to Arthur, responded as both of them, at the same time, had their hands in the air because of having guns pointed at them - they hoped it'd make them appear to be more harmless, so as to help with the effort of trying to get these scientists and guards to not expect what was about to come in the next few seconds. "He told us to come here, we just got a little lost when we were trying to find his office." 

"Do you think we should tell Mr. Kamski about this?" One of the other scientists asked the first one.

"I do." He began to reach for where his radio communicator was, but it was during this when Hank was already upon him; the latter, who was only about five feet away from him, swung his arm out and whacked him, hard, squarely in the side of the face whilst Arthur leapt at the opportunity to disarm that same scientist while he was distracted. 

It was as if someone had just lit a firework, because this event that the grey-haired police Lieutenant was responsible for not only prompted the other human male out of our heroes to join in with what was unfolding, but it additionally caused a chain reaction where, upon hearing the commotion, Markus and Andrea leapt down from inside the vent shaft, which was behind where the scientists were now facing, and the former swiftly took their guns away whilst the brunette took absolutely no time in using one of her cricket bats to strike most of them in the back of the head - at the same time as letting out a roar as a battle cry - with as much force as she could muster. As a result of this, these ones who she hit with the bat fell down onto the floor one after another like dominoes, out cold from the blow. 

"Now let's get straight to the point, shall we?" Arthur, who was normally used to speaking courteously to other people, said frostily with the gun he'd acquired being aimed directly at the leader's face. "Where's Jenna Kaufmann being held? Brown hair, glasses, Hawaiian shirt, the one who Kamski kidnapped earlier?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about." This man he had the pistol pointed at replied in a manner which was just as icy. 

"Well you've got five seconds to remember what he's talking about." The male android with the two differently coloured eyes told him as he held up his own gun out of the ones he'd taken from the others, having it aimed at the same target as that of the human protagonist whose hair and eyes were brown. "So you'd better start telling us the answer to his question, or else a gunshot will be the last thing you'll ever hear."

"Alright, alright!" In his growing panic at what was currently going on, he ended up blurting it out almost immediately after the previous sentence was said by Markus. "The girl was upstairs on Level 30, in Kamski's office, but now she's gone." His tone of voice was teetering on the threshold between fear and hostility.

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Andrea adopted the same coldness as her companions, her cricket bat that she'd just used being raised above her head in case she'd need to use it again in the next few seconds. 

"She was taken; the RK900 android, I think his name's Conrad, took her down to Level -1, Kamski told him to."

"Why did he tell him to do that?" Asked Hank.

"I don't know, what I've just told you is all I know, I swear." His expression became slightly more sinister thanks to a tiny smirk - he'd clearly picked this up from his boss - with his tone lowering in volume by a couple of degrees as he added, "But what I do know is that if you try to stop that android, there's going to be an even bigger mess to be cleaned up." 

Hank looked at Andrea, giving her a small nod in the time space of half a second, and instantly upon receiving this signal, she swung the cricket bat down across the back of his head, making the scientist weakly reach towards that area from the pain before he fell down, unconscious. 

"Smug git." Remarked Arthur. 

"You two can come down now!" Markus called back upwards behind him to where the vent shaft was, prompting North and Eve to climb down, the former going first, and land elegantly on the floor. 

"Y'know, I actually really admired that 'badass interrogator'-esque attitude you just showed." The darkest haired one out of our female heroes addressed her romantic partner. 

"Really? Well, thank you, love..." This male partially diverted his gaze away from her as some kind of attempt to hide the slowly blossoming blush on his cheeks, which made her chuckle. 

"It seems we now know where to find Jenna, then." North spoke up. "The only thing we have left to find out, though, is what exactly it is that Kamski and Conrad are plotting to do with Jenna once she's down there, on Level -1." 

"That's most likely to be where Connor is right now, so they must be using her as a hostage or something, probably to get him to do what they say." Eve added. 

"A bargaining chip in human form." Said Markus, to which Eve nodded her head. 

"Then we've gotta get down there before Conrad ends up being allowed to kill her earlier than planned." Hank took one of his revolvers out of his pocket and cocked it before removing the other one in addition. 

"Agreed. Like you said a few minutes ago, we're not out of the woods yet." Said North. 

**_ [Background score:] _ **

A gunshot rang out, and then another, and then yet another, all succeeding each other by two seconds flat. With these gunshots came human bodies, caked in blood around the areas where they'd been hit by the bullets, falling down to the ground like wilted petals, some of the aforementioned humans being alive, unable to move and in shock from the intense, white-hot pain they were in whilst the rest were fresh corpses. 

Connor, being the cause behind this, darted through the corridors of Level -2, the lowest floor of the entire Tower, having just arrived there via the stairs after finishing his handiwork on Level -1: every fellow android who was on that latter floor, in the laboratories, had now been freed from their captors and were using their superpowers to fight through any members of the CyberLife staff who got in the way of their new freedom, like the RK800 was. Level -2 was where the cells were located, both standard ones and the disciplinary confinement ones, which meant there were still more who needed to be set free. 

The previously mentioned telekinetic one with the dark hair and brown eyes, as he ran around the corner of the corridor he was in, battled against his opponents fiercely (and I **_seriously_** mean fiercely, like the church fight scene in Kingsman: the Secret Service), using his recently acquired gun for the majority of it but also utilising his power for the remainder. By now he'd managed to release a few of the androids being kept in the cells he'd passed, who all thanked him before going on their way to join the others upstairs in their attempt at breaking out of the Tower. 

When it came to which of the humans working for CyberLife he killed and which ones he chose to spare, Connor had a policy which he was putting to use: the ones who were scared of him and tried to run away instead of fighting back were the ones he spared, instead simply subduing them with gunshot wounds or telekinetically-inflicted injuries that weren't life-threatening, and the ones who he terminated were those who tried to kill him in on sight; he was still experiencing the burning sensation deep inside himself from his anger at CyberLife and their actions, but he still had _some_ mercy left. 

He felt like he was practically invincible right now, because the emotion fuelling his actions and the gradually growing success of his job there also provided him with being able to lean back underneath the path of incoming bullets so quickly that he was almost a blur, as well as being able to reach his optimum level of badassery. The air was, and had been for the last few minutes, thick with the loud sounds of gunfire and yelling, as at this current moment he used his ability to break both legs of a few guards from a distance, swiftly turned around a hundred and eighty degrees on the heels of his shoes to shoot three more in the chests after they'd just attempted to gun him down, and then turned back the other way and bent over backwards to shoot through the space between one of the three guards' legs at those of some more who were heading towards him from that direction. 

It was another five seconds later when, as he continued running after all this and turned around another corner, where there were two more rows of cells he needed to open up, he gasped as he suddenly found himself shot in the outer side of his left upper arm, with more Thirium splattering up the wall behind him and onto the part of his jacket that surrounded the affected area of his arm. It contributed to the wounds he'd already received around his right shoulder area, which weren't life-threatening but nonetheless caused him pain, even if this pain was smaller in magnitude compared to what a human would feel. 

"I thought I'd end up running into you down here, you freak of nature." Perkins, the one who'd just wounded Connor's left arm, commented with his gun still being held up. He was one of the few members of CyberLife's staff who supported the company and were willing to do anything to stop it from going under but simultaneously had a dislike for their androids. The one he'd addressed turned his head to glare at him in return. "Sorry Tin Man, but if you're looking for Dorothy I'm afraid she's just that little bit out of your reach right now." Richard additionally said to him condescendingly. 

Connor didn't understand the reference he'd just made, and he was also wondering why he'd been referred to as 'Tin Man' when CyberLife's androids were made of plastic, not metal, but he barely had any time to spare for pondering on this matter - Perkins abruptly began to charge towards him, his gun still pointed at our protagonist's head, so in response, Connor speedily put his hand out in front of him and used his telekinesis to snap his neck. Like with the others who he'd done this to, there was a cracking sound during which an expression of horror instantaneously materialised on the human's face, and then Richard Perkins' corpse was splayed out on the floor, this expression remaining on his features as if he were a statue. 

However, just as the lone person in the corridor right now who was still alive was starting to think that the matter at hand here was done, and that the next thing to do was to move along into the next part of the hallway to continue with freeing the rest of the captive androids, his eyes were caught by the sight of something approaching him all the way from the other end of the passage in front of him. 

"Stand down, Connor, and I'll consider postponing her death!" Conrad shouted out to his 'little brother' as he came to a stop when they were now fifteen feet away from each other, with a very frightened-looking Jenna being held in the grip of one of Conrad's arms to prevent her from making a run for it. The other arm, his left one, was being used to press the end of his own gun against the left side of her forehead once more like earlier.


	37. Episode 13: Up in Flames [Part 1/3]

"Her time of execution is in your hands." Said Conrad, both of his own hands still remaining firm in the positions they were in: the left one holding the end of his gun against the side of Jenna's head, with the right forearm holding her in place around the chest area. "You can either surrender now and I can convince Elijah and his men to delay it, or you can carry on with this foolishness and she'll die right now." There was so much tension in the air at this present moment that if you attempted it, you'd be perfectly capable of slicing through it with a knife.

"Are you okay, Jenna?" Connor called back across the distance of fifteen feet between them.

"Oh yeah, yeah, fair to middling, mate." She nodded her head and gave this reply shakily, trying to smile - and half succeeding - despite the intense fear playing out in her mind which was making her legs tremble.

"I'll get us both out of this, I promise. Just try to stay calm." The one who was telekinetic additionally told her, before then addressing the RK900, "If I surrender, how do I know you won't kill her right now anyway? How can I be sure of your word?"

"The answer to that is simple: my word is all you've got to go on right now, so there are no alternatives for you to concern yourself with or to rely on, and also, I'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish my task of neutralising you. It's up to you whether or not that involves this human girl's blood staining the walls in the next few seconds; I've noticed you've formed a friendship with her, and as a result of that I very much doubt you'd want to be responsible for causing an unnecessary mess."

"Basically, the second coming of Jesus here is doing this for the same reason behind why he and Kamski took me from the club building: using me as some kind of bargaining chip so that you'll do whatever they want." The female herself told him, the snarkiness in her tone being anything but unclear. During these moments just now when the two males were conversing, she was still surprised at how identical both of their voices were to the other, feeling as if you'd be completely unable to tell them apart if your eyes were closed. 

"Enough of this - it's time for the conversation to end and for your decision to begin, Connor!" The one in the predominantly white jacket suddenly yelled to his counterpart whose jacket was grey; evidently, he was gradually growing tired of the lack of co operation on the latter's part. "I've already told you the two options you have, and now what you also have is ten seconds to make your choice."

Jenna displayed a look of panic in her contracted irises, ever-so-slightly-open lower jaw and raised eyebrows, showing her face in the direction which allowed the RK800 to get a full, clear view of this expression. Four full seconds ticked by in which Connor began to weigh up every single one out of all the numerous possible outcomes as well as those already mentioned by Conrad, whether he did as he was told or he continued his pursuit of taking down CyberLife like he intended in the plan, but these seconds were interrupted as a proximity scan showed him that there was another android nearby, approaching from behind the taller one out of the pair of males, and it was only right at the last moment when the latter also picked up on its presence. 

Three bullets were fired through the air, making Jenna yelp in startlement as they did so because of the loud sounds they emanated - in the last couple of minutes, she'd heard a few other gunshots because of the chaos ensuing thanks to Connor, but these three were closer to her, which made the noise even more booming - with one of them hitting the back of Conrad's left shoulder, the second one coming into contact with the same side of his right upper leg and the last one ended up right in the middle of his back. The force of their impacts caused his grip around the human's torso to fractionally loosen, while at the same time both of them turned around to see who'd caused this and the shorter of the RK-models leaned a little bit to the side to get a look, too. 

It was a female, who was indeed an android like the proximity scans had said, and she was stood a few feet away from Conrad and Jenna, clutching an assault rifle in her hands which was currently pointed at the former. 

" _Chloe_?" The latter said when she saw who it was, her irises marginally expanding again even though her mouth was still hanging open by a few degrees, although now it was due to surprise rather than fear, and her eyebrows formed into a furrowed position. "I thought you were-"

"Elijah's loyal assistant?" The other female with the blonde ponytail hair effectively finished her sentence for her. "That I'd never dare to have thoughts of my own or never even think about leaving his side? That's what everyone else thought, including myself for a while, but a few minutes ago I finally decided that both of those are out of the question, because standing by while he and his men try to hurt and kill innocent people, whether they're humans or androids, is also out of the question."

Conrad's eyes narrowed again like they were a few seconds ago, with the fresh Thirium from the three gunshot wounds that Chloe had inflicted upon him staining his jacket and his jeans in a dark blue hue. And then he said in a volume which was no higher than a growl, "You've just signed your own death warrant."

With these seven words, he swiftly raised his hand at the same time as keeping the rest of his arm around the sixteen year old, and then there was a silence that descended upon all of them because of an invisible force slicing straight through Chloe's waist.   
This invisible force tore through her in a horizontal line that was slightly pointed upwards diagonally, splitting apart the upper half of her torso from her legs and the lower part of her waist in a moment which felt as if the flow of time itself had been reduced to slow motion, and her facial expression in that moment displayed the same type of horror as that of Perkins when Connor killed him a minute ago.

The slowed down moment came to an abrupt end when the two halves of her body hit the floor, the top half being splayed out in one place while the other half ended up landing two feet away vertically, with, of course, large puddles of blue blood that were slowly growing larger in size seeping out from both halves onto the black tiles beneath her, like ink which had been spilled onto a piece of paper. Her LED was bright red in colour right now, and for good reason, too. 

Connor had witnessed these kinds of things before, and therefore his reaction was one where his own lower jaw dropped open by a fraction but which was slightly more calm compared to that of Jenna, whose stomach experienced a sudden downwards-spiralling sensation from how sickening the scene in front of her was. She, too, had seen someone get killed before, specifically Daniel about two and a half weeks ago, but this death was significantly more unsightly, because whilst the cause of Daniel's demise was the gunshot wounds from being repeatedly shot by a sniper, Chloe's allowed Jenna to see the female android's insides courtesy of the region of her top half where she'd been cut in two. 

"You killed her. You actually just killed her..." The human said quietly in shock. 

"Is it a regular habit of yours to state the obvious?" Conrad asked her, completely unfazed as ever as his hand that he'd used to utilise his slicing ability resumed its previous position around her torso. "It's a shame, really: I rather liked her, and then she had to go and defect to the side of the ones who are causing all this chaos." He allowed himself a small, almost undetectable chuckle at the beginning of his sentence along with a tiny simper on one corner of his mouth, looking down at what he'd caused a few moments ago with equal measures of satisfaction and disappointment at what he'd 'needed' to do pulsing through his mind. 

"Wait." Connor, his eyes going wide in awe at what he was witnessing and his LED's colour becoming yellow, slowly raised his right hand to point at where the bisections of Chloe's body were on the floor.

Sure enough, Jenna and Conrad tried to see what exactly it was that he was pointing at, and what they beheld was something all three of them definitely never saw coming: Chloe was still alive, and not only that, but she additionally appeared to be repairing herself.

First, she reached out with one of her arms towards the bottom half, albeit with some effort and with some discreet wincing from the fierce pain she was in, in order to pull it back closer to the top half, this being done so that what happened next would be an easier process. Once the halves of her body were close enough to each other, the skin around the areas where they'd been cut apart seemed to be merging back together again, first being a blue ring around her abdomen before the aforementioned ring's colour transformed into white and then, finally, it vanished altogether, revealing nothing except for intact skin underneath. 

"That's impossible..." Said the male with the grey eyes - how could his ability have failed? It had always worked perfectly before whenever he wanted it to, so why had something gone wrong now, and how was the RT600 able to restore her body as if nothing had happened at all? 

"Like Elijah was telling Jenna a few minutes ago in his office, you and me are the only two known as Alpha-class androids, those who have a power that's unique to only us and that none of the others possess. Yours is control over antimatter, and one of my own powers is still technopathy but my second one, the one that makes me an Alpha-class, is the ability to regenerate myself, and by that, I mean not just the small amounts of damage like grazed skin or a simple cut, for example, but also injuries that would be fatal for others, like how you just tried to kill me." Said Chloe, whose dress was torn around the vicinity where he'd sliced her in half; the blood that her body had shed blended in almost perfectly with the colour of this dress. "I'm the android who's impervious to attempts on my life." She had no intention of telling Conrad but there were only three ways she could die, which were when her lifespan eventually ran out, if her CPU was damaged beyond repair, such as via a bullet, or if her Thirium pump was removed for long enough or destroyed. 

"Oh my god..." Jenna commented at this revelation and smiled in awe at it, feeling a wave of relief crash down upon her now that Chloe appeared to be okay.

Without any warning whatsoever, the attention of all four of the people here was brought back into full swing as only about two seconds after the girl had spoken, she yelped due to her getting wrenched away from Conrad's grip all of a sudden from outside of her line of sight, this android with three superpowers being roughly shoved onto the floor. 

"Go, run!" One of the androids out of the four currently holding the RK900 down exclaimed, turning his head around to look at Connor whilst he and the other three used all of their physical might to keep the antagonist there - one of them was doing this by also utilising their own ability, which was the same as that of our hero with the brown eyes. They were evidently some of the ones that had been freed in the last few minutes.

"What about you? We can't leave you here with him!" Chloe told them in genuine concern for their safety. 

"We can only hold him down for a little bit longer, so just run away and stop being worried about us, we know what we're doing!" A female, the one whose telekinesis was being used as mentioned above, said back, her tone being predominantly laced with determination despite the remainder playing host to her own small portion of worry.

"We need to go." Said Connor, who was also realising that it was indeed true: they only had a few precious seconds to flee while they still could. 

Jenna didn't need telling twice. She ran as fast as possible over towards him, Chloe soon doing the same as well, and with none of them looking back, the male began to sprint back down the corridor in the direction he'd been coming in a minute ago; once again the former was now ducking around corners, this time having to be more careful so as to steer clear of the corpses and the still half alive bodies that he'd left in his wake during the previously mentioned section of time. The 3 of them had ran past a corner at the end of the passageway for the second time when, behind them, they heard the quick but nauseating sound of blood being shed, and lots of it. 

The trio tried their best not to dwell on the mental images of the scene that lay off in the twisting corridor's distance behind them, a scene caused by the loud, stomach-turning sound they'd just heard, but the one in the blue dress and the matching high heels let her legs do the physical work of running whilst her mind began to do some quiet thinking in the background: she knew that the four androids back there who'd held Conrad down and who'd ended up meeting their fates to allow her, Connor and Jenna to make a run for it were aware of what they were doing, but even so, she couldn't stop herself from pondering on the fact that they'd gotten away and the four had ultimately sacrificed themselves, and these four were killed so soon after they'd started running. It made her wonder how many more innocent lives were going to be lost that night thanks to the cruelty of those who were the cause of her and the others' fear and oppression, Conrad being one of them. 

It was at the same time as this was going on when Hank, Andrea, Eve, Markus, Arthur and North had been for the last minute or so, and were currently, battling their own way through the corridors of the Tower's ground floor with the weapons these four humans were still carrying, and with the pair of androids utilising their powers for this same task. The group of six had - more or less - been adhering to the same policy as Connor had when it came to which of their enemies they spared and which ones they killed, although despite all seven of them sticking to this strategy of only taking the lives of the ones who tried to kill them and leaving the other ones, who were simply scared of what was happening, Connor's approach had been a tiny bit more ruthless thanks to being fuelled by his wrath. 

"That was close." Said Andrea, in the middle of catching her breath back from knocking out another guard a few seconds ago by using one of her cricket bats. She, Arthur and Eve were momentarily taking shelter behind a wall right now, whilst Hank was also mostly doing the same but, because he was closest to this wall's edge, he was simultaneously firing both of his twin revolvers at the other incoming guards approaching from the direction they'd been heading in; he did this by briefly peeking out from behind the wall for just a couple of moments, which was so that there'd be a reduced chance of him ending up getting shot or something else happening to him in these moments when he was open to attacks from their assault rifles. North, facing the other direction, and Markus were making use of their respective electrokinesis and pyrokinesis to hold off, and injure or kill, their unwanted guests. 

"We need to keep moving!" North yelled out over the din of all the action going on around them: the radiant flames coming out from Markus' hands were formed into a large shield against the onslaught of the bullets hurtling towards him, with two of them managing to come into contact with both of his shoulders at the front, the WR400's lightning bolts were striking down those who tried to do the same to her from where she was facing, Hank's revolvers were emitting several thundering sounds to signal their own metallic projectiles being fired through the air, and, of course, there were the sounds of the opposing forces' weapons being discharged. 

"I think you're right about that!" Responded Arthur, whose volume of his voice kicked itself up into the same level as that of hers for the same reason. He raised the melee weapon he was grasping in one of his hands, additionally making sure that he was ready to make use of the other one, in preparation for what he and the rest of our hexad of protagonists were about to face. 

Cut to a rough estimate of thirty seconds later and by now, they'd all successfully gotten past the obstacle they'd been fighting against and they were dashing down the corridor at top speed, weapons raised and superpowers at the ready; they were running so quickly that if indeed there were some scientists and guards who were coming out of the floor's offices and other rooms at the sides to intercept them, the six didn't notice them, instead solely focusing on the long stretch of the passageway in front of them. 

Soon, they'd reached a part of the corridor that gave way into a larger room, which looked like it was the central hub of all the ground floor's passages on their first guess due to its size, as well as due to the sight of all the numerous entrances to these aforementioned passages lining the walls like floor-length posters. However, another thing whose amount would be described as 'numerous' was the group of guards standing in this larger room, guns aimed directly at our heroes - there was about twenty-five of them, stood together and forming a blockade to stop the six from getting away.

"Oh no..." Eve felt a tingling sensation, formally known as intense fear, in the pit of her stomach as she said this to the others, not daring to take her eyes off the guards, who appeared to be led by Allen, at the front of the pack.

They'd ran headlong into a trap.

"You got that right." Hank nodded in agreement while beginning to receive the same sinking feeling in his gut.


	38. Episode 13: Up in Flames [Part 2/3]

"Mr. Anderson." Captain Allen addressed the oldest out of our group of six. "I had a feeling we'd end up meeting each other again, although I would've preferred if... things didn't have to be this way." He paused most of the way through his second sentence in order to come up with how to phrase the rest of it. 

"This wasn't exactly my first choice of how to spend the evening, either." Hank replied frostily, the volume of his voice being somewhere on the border between low and moderate, with him currently having one of his guns raised and pointed in the direction of the one who'd spoken previously; he already had an idea about what was meant by 'things having to be this way'. 

"And it looks like you had to bring along your entourage with you, too: two runaway androids, two teenagers and a man with a couple of baseball bats. Those choices of opponents don't exactly make me shiver with fear." Commented Allen upon noticing the other five next to and behind him. 

"Do you pick up these kinds of things you say from your boss, by any chance?" The police Lieutenant asked, noticing how similar that which had just been uttered was compared to Kamski's mannerisms and the way in which he'd been speaking to him and the rest of the group earlier. "Anyway, I didn't come here to talk."

"Yes, you came here to attempt some kind of scheme to take down everything Kamski and the rest of us have worked so hard to build up over these years. You and Connor, your other android buddy below us." He motioned with his eyes at the floor tiles underneath their feet. "But you're right: me and my men aren't here to talk, either. I hope you're happy with this decision you've made, Lieutenant, albeit a reckless one, because I'm done with this. You and the others with you have already seen and been given plenty of warning about these kinds of decisions, and now you die."

Narrowing their eyes in anticipation and - putting as much effort into it as absolutely possible - trying their best to kick aside their worries and sickening dread, Arthur, Eve and Andrea all clutched the handles of their melee weapons that little bit more tightly, with North and Markus both charging up their abilities to such a huge extent that the lightning bolts and flames were covering up a large majority of their forearms and additionally doing the same to a small fraction of their upper arms. The RK200's raging fire on both of his arms lit up the corners of the room's walls several meters away, making these corners look as though they were bathed in the dusk sunlight, and the female's thunderbolts could be heard fizzling thanks to the raw energy contained within themselves, as if even these pieces of electrokinetic energy, which obviously had no consciousness or emotions, were currently feeling just as aggressive and resolute as their wielder.   
Hank's index finger tightened itself significantly around his revolver's trigger, and then he used his other hand to pull the other one out of his pocket before, at the same time as letting out a battle cry in the form of a thunderous roar, he charged forwards, with the other five following close behind in a tight formation. 

"Mr. Anderson." Captain Allen addressed the oldest out of our group of six. "I had a feeling we'd end up meeting each other again, although I would've preferred if... things didn't have to be this way." He paused most of the way through his second sentence in order to come up with how to phrase the rest of it. 

"This wasn't exactly my first choice of how to spend the evening, either." Hank replied frostily, the volume of his voice being somewhere on the border between low and moderate, with him currently having one of his guns raised and pointed in the direction of the one who'd spoken previously; he already had an idea about what was meant by 'things having to be this way'. 

"And it looks like you had to bring along your entourage with you, too: two runaway androids, two teenagers and a man with a couple of baseball bats. Those choices of opponents don't exactly make me shiver with fear." Commented Allen upon noticing the other five next to and behind him. 

"Do you pick up these kinds of things you say from your boss, by any chance?" The police Lieutenant asked, noticing how similar that which had just been uttered was compared to Kamski's mannerisms and the way in which he'd been speaking to him and the rest of the group earlier. "Anyway, I didn't come here to talk."

"Yes, you came here to attempt some kind of scheme to take down everything Kamski and the rest of us have worked so hard to build up over these years. You and Connor, your other android buddy below us." He motioned with his eyes at the floor tiles underneath their feet. "But you're right: me and my men aren't here to talk, either. I hope you're happy with this decision you've made, Lieutenant, albeit a reckless one, because I'm done with this. You and the others with you have already seen and been given plenty of warning about these kinds of decisions, and now you die."

Narrowing their eyes in anticipation and - putting as much effort into it as absolutely possible - trying their best to kick aside their worries and sickening dread, Arthur, Eve and Andrea all clutched the handles of their melee weapons that little bit more tightly, with North and Markus both charging up their abilities to such a huge extent that the lightning bolts and flames were covering up a large majority of their forearms and additionally doing the same to a small fraction of their upper arms. The RK200's raging fire on both of his arms lit up the corners of the room's walls several meters away, making these corners look as though they were bathed in the dusk sunlight, and the female's thunderbolts could be heard fizzling thanks to the raw energy contained within themselves, as if even these pieces of electrokinetic energy, which obviously had no consciousness or emotions, were currently feeling just as aggressive and resolute as their wielder.   
Hank's index finger tightened itself significantly around his revolver's trigger, and then he used his other hand to pull the other one out of his pocket before, at the same time as letting out a battle cry in the form of a thunderous roar, he charged forwards, with the other five following close behind in a tight formation. 

Three pairs of feet were making their way up the flight of stairs, covered with polished white tiles, which resided on Level -2 and led up to its one-floor-up counterpart. The people who owned these feet were running too quickly to be focused at all on the pattering noise that resounded on the surface of these tiles as they did so, with their reason behind choosing to make use of this method to reach Level -1 instead of one of the elevators being because of the fact that the latter was more easily interceptable, as well as it being further away from where they'd previously been before reaching the stairs. 

One of the three people tried her best to keep going, because every single second counted, but nevertheless, she suddenly couldn't stop herself from leaning against the railings to her right in order to support herself due to the throbbing pain that was coursing through the left side of her abdomen area, with her also being unable to stop herself from cringing as an effect of this affliction. 

"Gordon Bennett..." She said to herself in between wincing slightly and, in addition, getting some of her breath back from having just been running. 

"Are you okay?" Chloe asked out of concern as she and Connor both stopped for a moment to turn around. 

"I think it's just a stitch in my side." Answered Jenna. She abruptly turned her head back to look down the steps they'd already ascended when she heard a sound which indicated that the person they were fleeing from was getting closer and closer with every second, piece by piece - as mentioned above, time was indeed of the essence. To be specific, the aforementioned sound was that of the person's footsteps gradually growing louder. 

"That'll pass in a few moments." Connor told her as a method of reassurance, and then because of him also hearing the sound and realising that they needed to keep going, he reached forwards and grabbed hold of her right wrist with his left hand.

"What are you doing?" She queried with marginally raised eyebrows. 

"We have to keep moving, and I can't let you stay here in pain; I will _not_ let Conrad catch up to you, Jenna." The cold determination lacing this last part of his second sentence was the same in nature as that which he'd displayed a few minutes beforehand, when he was battling his way through guards and scientists on Level -1: a special type of determination specifically reserved for matters regarding those who felt that they automatically had the right to make attempts on his friends' lives, and just because of him and the other androids wanting to seize what they'd deserved for so long.

"I've got you now, Connor." The identical voice, still remaining distinctive courtesy of the chill it sent down the girl's spine, spoke out, making her turn around and making Chloe and Connor glance behind her, all three of them seeing its owner standing right there, about twenty feet away in front of the first step on the flight of stairs. 

"RUN!" Yelled Chloe. 

And like that, they were once again off like a shot. Still holding on to Jenna's hand, the RK800 did what he'd said and indeed pulled her along to make sure there was no chance of her lagging behind, another factor behind this likelihood he'd now eliminated being the fact that she was the only one out of the three of them who didn't have unlimited stamina; they were ascending the rest of the stairs even more quickly now that their adversary was just seen in the near vicinity, the alarm and fright within themselves coming into play at a larger magnitude compared to its extent a minute ago. She tried her best to match her own running pace to the other pair's, but it was Connor who was doing a majority of the work, causing her to feel a little bit like she was being rushed off of her feet. 

"You should realise that you can't run from me. None of you can." The RK900, still calmly walking up the stairs behind them at a brisk pace, spoke out, deliberately making sure his voice was at a volume capable of being heard by them but not so loud that he was shouting - it was somewhere in between. They couldn't see it but this male, getting the sense that they weren't going to stop and surrender unless he took more persuasive action, put both of his hands together and started to focus a small part of his mind on charging up one of his powers between them. 

"What's that?" The sixteen year old asked worriedly when she couldn't help but let her ears pick up on what sounded like energy slowly activating. 

Chloe's eyes widened even more by a few degrees upon hearing it herself. "It's antimatter." 

"That's Conrad's main ability isn't it?" Jenna remembered what his three powers were earlier revealed to be, back at the club building, and she consequently experienced the same change in expression.

"Exactly." 

She'd only just managed to finish getting this word out in reply to the human, although it was almost instantaneously after she'd finished saying it when the group of three were thrown off of the floor and into the wall of the corridor stretching out in front of the top step, which they'd very nearly reached. It was an explosion that caused this, based on the fact that they heard something to this nature go off behind them at the exact moment when they were flung across the corridor. 

Shortly after they'd hit this wall and fallen down to the ground, Connor and Chloe's LEDs were bright red for a few moments but they nonetheless managed to raise themselves back up onto their knees whilst the human, however, was finding this to be a significantly more difficult job - most of her body was bruised from the impact, meaning that as a result, her limbs were shaking by a tiny smidge as she pushed her hands against the floor for traction, and during one of these attempts to get back up, she fell back down again. This predominance of her body that had suffered bruising was aching all over, making what she was trying to do that little bit harder. 

Upon looking in front of them at the damage caused by the antimatter explosion, the 3 saw that not only was the glass from the ceiling light tiles above them completely shattered into a million minuscule pieces on the floor, despite some of these pieces being a bit bigger than the others, but additionally, these ceiling lights were accordingly flickering between being switched on and off, creating an eerie, horror movie-like atmosphere. 

"Connor, your face." After finally completing the task of pulling herself up into a seated position on her knees, Jenna noticed a long horizontal cut on his right cheek, stretching from a couple of inches underneath the right corner of his eye to a few centimetres away from his sideburn on that side of his head. As she said these words, she pointed at that right cheek. 

"That must've been caused by the explosion a moment ago." He used his left hand to feel for the cut she seemed to be notifying him about, the tips of his index and middle fingers making contact with the droplets of Thirium which were oozing out of it. "But what happened to your arm?" The telekinetic with the brown eyes suddenly caught on to the sight of her right forearm's long gash gained from Conrad's slicing ability a few minutes beforehand, back in Kamski's office. 

"Oh yeah. Conrad did that earlier when I got snappy with him." She explained its origin and lifted up this forearm to have another look at it for herself, grimacing at her skin dyed scarlet around the main area of the gash. 

All of a sudden, Connor then proceeded to take off the black tie he was wearing from around his neck and, with it now being held in his left hand, he moved in closer towards her and seemed to be placing it onto the cut. 

"What...?" 

"It'll stop the bleeding, and it'll also prevent any risk of the open wound becoming infected." He already answered her question before she could finish fully getting the words out, her deciding to suck up the pain and hold still while he wrapped the tie around her arm and covered up the gash with it as a tourniquet of sorts. However, there was nothing she could do to not wince almost undetectably when he finished up by tying it up tightly on the other side of her arm. 

Twenty-five feet away, a small percentage of the smashed up glass littering the floor was flattened by the sole of a black shoe, producing a soft but simultaneously attention-grabbing sound which could only be described as a mixture of being like a plastic bag in the process of getting squashed in addition with the obvious noise that's normally associated with glass. 

While this was taking place, Chloe abruptly found her physical body remaining where it was but her consciousness, meanwhile, was taken away to someplace else: once the whiteness in her vision had completely faded out and she could get her bearings, she appeared to be in a snowy, almost dismal place whose coldness in the air didn't affect her but she could still detect it. Upon looking down at the ground, she found out that she was standing on what appeared to be a lake or river whose surface was frozen so solid that it was supporting all of her weight without any signs of cracking, with some tiny little flakes of snow falling down onto the ice, and based on the colour of the sky, it was nighttime here. And then, when she looked around at her surroundings in confusion, she realised her mind's current location: this was, without a doubt, the Zen Garden, albeit a somewhat different variation of it in some respects. 

"Did you seriously think that we'd let you escape from this Tower so easily?" Amanda, who was stood ten feet away behind the RT600, said to her coldly, but also with a hint of taunting her ever so slightly. The latter turned around to face the former, wearing a black dress with a shimmering blue sash over her left shoulder and sleeve. 

"You can't do this - how many times are we going to have to say it, myself included? We are _not_ you and Kamski's tools for experimentation anymore, and we're _**certainly**_ not just a group of people whose lives you can dictate anymore, either!" The blonde with the ponytail, becoming irritated at how persistent the opposing force was, said back. 

"I'm afraid you are, Chloe. This has been CyberLife's purpose for over six years now, and there's no reason for why it can't continue as planned for more years; all you and the escapees are bringing from what you're doing is chaos and destruction." The interface replied, before the android could only just make out a fractional, sly smile appearing on a small portion of one side of her mouth. "But I wouldn't have any regrets about that, because this is what you've always secretly wanted, isn't it? This company's eventual downfall? Now it means you, Connor and the girl get to find out exactly what happens when you try to accomplish such a thing." The previously mentioned chilling simper grew marginally larger. 

"Look where your dreams of freedom got you and your friends, Connor." Chloe was instantly brought back into the place where her physical body was still situated because of Conrad, standing in front of them at this distance in front of the stairs they'd just ascended, saying this to his 'little brother'. "What I've been wondering is _why_? Why did you and all those others have to run away from here a month ago like cowards, when _all_ you had to do was obey?" He expressed his strong disapproval nestled inside his voice's tone, as well as gritting his teeth throughout the last half of his second sentence, whilst slowly walking closer to them at the same time, this looking like he was simply teleporting over short distances courtesy of the flickering lights on the ceiling. More of the glass beneath his feet was crushed against the floor as he did so. "You've been a great disappointment to Amanda, you know. You've been a great disappointment to _me_. But fortunately, that's all going to end now." Within another few seconds, he was now only five feet in front of them, making Jenna back up as far as absolutely possible against the wall in her recurring concealed panic; this panic grew larger in magnitude when the taller one out of the two RK-model androids raised his Ruger 8605 and aimed it at the front of Connor's forehead. There was no doubt that she and Chloe would be next. "Any last words?" 

Once this sentence was spoken - in a volume lower than that of his previous statements and, as a result, more sinister - all three of them knew that despite their previous brushes with death and their lucky escapes from them, this was a rare occasion when there was no way out of it. No tricks hidden up their sleeves, and no extra plans that would work right now, because if Connor tried to use the gun he had in his possession, Conrad would do the same to him. Any sign of resistance could be the spark for him to just kill them all at the same time, with their situation being made even worse by the fact that they were effectively backed into a corner. 

There was no doubt about it that they were well and truly doomed.

He smirked by a tiny amount and said as he tightened his grip on the trigger, "I thought not." 

Just as his finger went to pull it, though, there was one thing stopping him from carrying out this action. Specifically, it was a pair of arms which had appeared around his neck a tenth of a second ago without any warning at all, restraining him from doing anything else except for struggling against them with his eyes going wide and his eyebrows narrowing; to be even more specific, these arms were covered with long pale grey sleeves, giving Jenna and Connor an idea about who this person behind Conrad might be. 

"Hello again, you two." Markus moved his head to look at them as he smiled. "And Chloe." 

"We came down here from the ground floor to find you - Hank, Andrea, Eve and Arthur are fighting against CyberLife's guards right now, as we speak!" The trio's attention was caught by the sound of what they soon deduced to be North's voice, which was confirmed to be the case when they saw her running towards them from the staircase twenty-five feet away. It also lead upstairs, to the floor above. 

"Are they all okay?" Jenna shuddered to imagine those four up against an entire horde of armed men whose mindset was to have no hesitation when dealing with anyone who got in their way. 

"We've managed to stop a few of those guards, so it's not quite as big of a threat anymore, and some of the other androids Connor's been freeing have joined them to help with holding them off." North eased her worries by a little bit.

Having now become incensed at all these countless interruptions that were stopping him from competing his mission, Conrad swung his right arm out against Markus, this action being done with such force that it caused the latter to be tossed into the wall to his right and then fall down to the floor, this split second in which it took place also creating the sound of his zip-up turtleneck's fabrics getting torn. 

While Chloe helped Jenna get back up as they and Connor all rose onto their feet again, the other female android glanced in the RK200's direction, with her irises shrinking by a couple of degrees out of concern for him; he fortunately turned out within another few moments to be fine, as shown when he got back up with only a miniature fraction of pain being displayed in his mannerisms, but the front of his turtleneck, however, had three large rips across its chest area, exposing the skin underneath which had also been grazed due to Conrad having seemingly used his slicing ability to a small degree for good measure during the action that had just taken place.

Until now, the RK900's emotions had been suppressed and coiled up inside him like a sleeping snake, in order to not show what he deemed as any signs of weakness in the face of his adversaries, although this façade had, in the last four seconds, faded away and allowed the previously mentioned snake within his body and his mind to fully wake up. And it was baring its venomous fangs at the rude awakening. 

It was to such a small degree that it was almost undetectable, but Conrad's body was beginning to shake ever so slightly while he looked up at the five other people around him, and the still flickering ceiling lights above made his movements appear even more eerie, as if he could pounce at any given moment when the lights were off for half a second at random intervals. His irises shrunk themselves as he bellowed, "I don't care how long it takes - _I'll kill you! Do you hear me?! **I'LL DESTROY YOU ALL!**_ " 

After this moment in which they were fairly certain that his last sentence would end up being heard all the way over in Sweden, his hair and his jacket were then moving in place as if they were being blown around by a gust of wind, this being because of both of his hands at his sides starting to faintly glow white in colour with the raw energy of his powers. 


	39. Episode 13: Up in Flames [Part 3/3]

To put it simply, the ground floor of the CyberLife Tower was in chaos. 

A large majority of the floor tiles were littered with corpses, these being of both human guards and of some of the other androids who Connor had freed a few minutes ago, with Eve, Arthur, Hank and Andrea - alongside several more recently released androids who were currently utilising their powers - brawling against the continuous onslaught of the opposing forces on these few remaining areas which weren't populated by blood and gore. The havoc that both sides had caused in this much larger room, still seemingly the hub of all of the ground floor's twisting corridors, was stomach-turning to a marginal degree: the aforementioned cadavers were in numerous different positions, some being with their limbs splayed out and with some of them on their backs, looking like they were gazing up at the ceiling high above, whilst the others were lying flat on their chests, their faces completely unable to be seen and, as a result in the case of quite a few of them, their wounds and causes of death also being unable to be seen.   
Roughly only half of the total number of human bodies here were dead ones, however, because only half of the guards and scientists who'd came their way had made attempts on the group of four's lives, so the other half had just been wounded in a manner that was meant to immobilise them - the android bodies, though, were all completely still, the life force which had previously occupied them having been snatched away by the remaining members of the force our heroes were fighting against. Both colours of blood were splattered messily across the floor tiles in random patterns, some areas being mostly covered in them whilst others only had a few drops covering their surface.

"Hold on, where've North and Markus gone to?" Eve shouted to the others over all the deafening noise in worry, in between using her cricket bat, along with her rounders one, to quickly beat a couple of adversaries who were heading straight towards her into unconsciousness. The bullets hurtling through the air around them were like a blizzard of metal, rendering only a few areas of the space around our protagonists devoid of their wrath and, luckily, only managing to give them a few narrow cuts and scrapes on the surface of their exposed skin, along with tearing through some parts of their clothes that weren't clinging to closely to their bodies. 

"They said something a minute or two ago about going downstairs to find Connor and Jen." Replied Arthur from a few feet away at the same volume. He hurriedly ducked down out of the path of yet another bullet soaring towards his head, him and the other three having gotten a little bit more used to this commotion and the many dangers that it had brought in abundant supply. "They'll probably come back up again in another few minutes." 

"Look out!" Andrea suddenly exclaimed, addressing Hank, because the fifty-two year old abruptly found himself face to face with a particular guard who managed to strike a blow to the left side of his jaw, distracting him for a moment as his head jerked to the side and allowing the perfect window of opportunity for the above-mentioned guard to whack him on the other side of his face, this time using the assault rifle he was clutching to do it, this being as another distraction. He then dropped the gun to the ground in order to free up space in his hands for using one of them, specifically the right one, to grasp onto the pistol being carried in the holster on his belt and utilising the other hand for roughly grabbing Hank's neck.

"I told you you were going to end up meeting your fate, Lieutenant." Captain Allen, tightening his left hand's grip slightly and consequently making Hank wince internally from the pain, said as, with his other hand, he raised the pistol to the side of the latter's head while keeping his expression firm and ominously cold. "You should've listened to all the warnings about coming here, Lieutenant Anderson."

He didn't get to see Allen's face when it happened, although he guessed that his expression had just instantaneously morphed into one of unpleasant alarm, but all of a sudden, the pressure applying itself from his hand onto the older human's neck ceased to exist, and the security captain fell down to the floor on his left with what appeared to be an open wound on the back of his head, which was allowing his bright red blood to come trickling out of it. Hank couldn't help but cringe fractionally at the sight of it. 

"Evening, Hank! We thought you might need three extra pairs of hands here." He heard a female voice calls out from in front of him, a few feet away, and when he looked up from Allen's fresh corpse to see who its owner was, he was surprised to see a blonde AX400 stood there with an assault rifle being held in her own hands. 

"Is that you, Kara?" Andrea noticed this from afar and her head perked up as she asked this, keeping the corner of her eye focused on the onslaught of the group's enemies around her. 

"We came because we couldn't just sit and do nothing at the club building. We couldn't." Said Ralph, who the four human protagonists saw to be standing next to the female android, with Alice in between the pair but mostly taking shelter behind her right leg. "Ralph suggested that we come here to help, and it took a minute or two but Kara and the little one agreed with him!" He appeared to be clutching a black pistol in one of his hands, along with his knife being held in the other. 

Three large lightning bolts collided with a force which could only be described in words as a deep blackness with white borders around it, that gave the impression of them being, in a way, little cracks in the fabric separating the world as we know it from different realms and universes whose contents are of such a high power that we'd have no chance of fathoming it if we were to find ourselves inside of it. This force absorbed the aforementioned lightning bolts in no time flat, rendering them useless except for the fact that they managed to at least cause a tiny fraction of damage to the force's wielder, making his arms momentarily experience a small spasm that barely had any effect at all on his facial expression: one of bottled up rage being released, along with a little dash of slight lunacy that made him even more deadly right now. 

Connor put his own ability to use by non-physically lifting up a chair from a few feet away to his right; he, Chloe, North, Markus and Jenna had been spending the last few minutes fighting against Conrad, the former four utilising their powers, and at one point they'd also sprinted down the corridor at top speed in order to make an attempt to flee from him, which was how they ended up getting cornered inside one of the lab rooms they'd been running past. Getting back to the present moment, though, the RK800 thrust his right arm outwards, using this same ability of his to throw the chair in the direction of the male android with the grey eyes - it hit him directly in the front of his face, prompting him to retaliate by using his slicing ability to cleanly cut it in half, rendering it now useless. It was made of metal, so when its two halves hit the floor it produced a loud clanking sound.

The RK900 had sustained a few more injuries during the last few moments in which he'd been fighting against our other group of heroes, some of these including a small burn on his left cheek that was causing a portion of the synthetic skin on that area of his face to be deactivated - the white plastic underneath appeared to be showing burn marks - and some fresh gunshot wounds to his abdomen area that, unfortunately, hadn't hit any of his vital biocomponents.

"Are you sure you know how to handle a gun?" Markus addressed Jenna, who was the one with Conrad's pistol currently in her hands after he'd dropped it a few seconds ago amidst all the commotion. 

"I play a _lot_ of video games." The sixteen year old answered him with an excited expression surfacing on her features; throughout the last few years of her life, she'd always been imagining what it'd be like to be using a firearm, like the characters in the countless films, TV show episodes and other windows into the world of fiction that she'd witnessed, and for her it was now no longer fiction. For the very first time, she had the opportunity to partake in that activity which made a series pleasurable chills march down her spine. 

Going ahead with this activity, she aimed it at its former user and, clenching her eyes shut, she pulled the trigger, feeling the weapon jolt slightly in her hands as she did so. After another couple of seconds, she opened her eyelids back up again, and the sight she was met with was that of another hole in the front of Conrad's right shoulder, having another small stream of Thirium pouring out at a constant speed. 

Angered by the fact that this girl was continuing to resist against him, along with her four companions, he put his hands up next to each other in front of his chest in preparation for using his main ability, the most dangerous one. 

His 'little brother' anticipated what was about to come, and as a result of doing so, he raised both of his hands and once again utilised his telekinesis, this time for throwing Conrad into the wall to the latter's right - it was done with such a huge magnitude of force that the impact loosened quite a few of the wall's snowy-white tiles, which fell down to the floor at the same time as the person who'd been flung into them, leaving a copious amount of cracks and gaps in that area of the wall in a circular shape. Connor then proceeded to do the same again, but this time he turned his outstretched arms to his right because he now, still telekinetically, tossed his taller counterpart into the opposite wall; this had the same effect on its own tiles as the previous collision, although the only difference was that this time its magnitude was slightly larger, and consequently there were more wall tile fragments that fell from their designated places than its counterpart on the other side. Even though he'd managed to master a very large majority of his power's capabilities, Connor nonetheless felt the strain caused by what he'd just used it for, because he was now able to move people and living creatures with a lot more ease but it nevertheless made him feel like there was a giant iron slab pressing down onto him when he did so - this made him emit a yell during the second time just now.

A few fragments of the wall's tiles had cut into Conrad's back when the impact took place, having the same effect as what would've happened if the wall was made of glass: some particularly small pieces were stuck into his body underneath the back of his jacket, which they'd torn straight through, and when he stood back up again after another 6 seconds ish, about 80% of them fell out whilst the others remained, like darts that had been tossed into a board. A couple of droplets of Thirium could be seen dripping from one area of the bottom of his jacket, with his LED briefly being red from the damage he'd just sustained before soon flicking into yellow as his anger returned at the same force as before.

"Sooner or later, sooner or later you're going to surrender to me, _**all**_ _of you will_." Said Conrad, his tone still being aggressive as hell but it contained clear signs of eeriness, as well.

"Over our dead bodies!" North shouted back defiantly. Just as their adversary's ruthless mindset hadn't faltered in the last few minutes, her own mindset of wanting to see him brought down more than anything else right now also hadn't wavered in the slightest. 

" _So be it_." He hissed in response, charging straight towards them after he'd finished speaking. 

Jenna continued to fire the gun in her hands several times while aiming it at him - still greatly enjoying the thrill of feeling like she was a character in an action movie - and she only managed to land one bullet in a non-critical area of his torso whilst all the others she shot at him were rendered useless by him currently using his barrier creation ability to protect himself. 

Predicting his movements, Markus charged towards him in addition, and he was fortunately able to intercept Conrad before the latter reached the other three out of this group of protagonists, roughly tackling him down to the floor. None of them knew this for certain, but they presumed that his reason for running towards them was so that he could set off another antimatter explosion that would take out all of them at a close range, even though his own life would be lost in the process - he'd struck them as the type of person who'd be more than willing to pay that price if it meant that his targets would go down with him. The two males wrestled against each other on the ground, fists flying and yet more Thirium being shed as it happened, and before anyone had any time to mentally register it, Markus' left hand got itself caught on the currently open door they were next to, his pyrokinesis inadvertently setting off a flame on the bottom of this door. 

"Markus..." Chloe said in order to get his attention when, a few seconds later, this small flame had grown into blaze covering the entire door, which was also beginning to consume the walls and other doors outside this room as well as the ceiling of this one at an alarming rate. Obviously this was the point when it was mentally registered. 

Conrad was about to finish him off when, suddenly, both he and the RK200 turned their heads to look at what was unfolding around them, all four of their eyes immediately widening themselves once they saw it. 

"Oh my _god_..." Jenna commented in a blend of fear and a tiny bit of awe, but predominantly the former, now that the simultaneously deadly and oddly beautiful fire had reached almost all around the room; it was amazing and very surprising what his power was capable of causing. As if the stakes weren't high enough already, they were now in even deeper and darker schtuck. 

Back up on the ground floor, the battle had remained intense and chaotic just like it had done earlier, although now our heroes' strength and attention were both slipping by a fraction due to the wounds they'd sustained, not to mention the fact that four out of seven of them were beginning to become exhausted from the immense amount of effort they'd put in to make it this far without losing their lives.

At the current moment, a guard was in the process of trying to beat Andrea with the butt of his assault rifle, partly succeeding as it managed to make contact with the sides of one of her shoulders on a rough estimate of five times out of ten. It was purely involuntary, because if she could help it she had no intention of showing signs of weakness to her enemy, but the half French brunette-dyed-red female let out a gasp of pain on every occasion when she was hit; it was done with such force that it was certain to leave numerous huge bruises there now. Luckily, though, he was stopped from aiming his gun at her and finishing the job when Arthur, emitting a roar, sprinted towards them, dodging past the bullets with ease because of a sudden burst of energy he'd been provided with when he saw this scene, and he wasted absolutely no time in using one of his bats to whack the guard's head as hard as possible, rendering him unconscious after a moment. 

"Are you alright, love?" The tenderness lacing the creases and fold lines of his tone were what currently stood out to her, being of a much higher importance than the badassery of his ruthlessness when dealing with anyone who laid a finger on her no matter how much this latter part made her heart flutter. 

"Yeah, yeah I am, thanks." She replied, cringing slightly as she gave her shoulder a quick self massage. 

Both of them were then instantaneously brought to their full attention of the situation as they heard the abrupt sound of Ralph shouting out in intense pain, prompting their heads to turn in his direction: as it turned out, it appeared that he'd been hit by one of the bullets, but this wasn't just a graze like what had so far been inflicted on the others out of our group of seven. It was a direct hit to his right arm, making that arm go limp and let go of the gun he'd acquired, which dropped to the floor.

" _Ralph!_ " Eve exclaimed with wide eyes when this injury took place; none of them had been hurt this badly during the fight until now, and the event that had just happened left her and the other five who'd witnessed it wondering what was going to happen next. Ralph was one of this group's most capable fighters, so with one of his arms now being out of action, would it mean that they were about to lose? Did it mean that the odds which had so far been in their favour were going to start swinging in CyberLife's direction in the next few minutes and that it was all over? Even if this was just a small possibility, it was nevertheless a frightening one to think about, because even one single change in how they'd been carrying out this battle could mean the difference between victory and a very gruesome defeat. 

"You've all made quite a clutter down here, haven't you?" Commented the extremely distinctive voice of Kamski, making the remaining guards who surrounded the group fall silent. Their leader was seen to be marching up towards our heroes from the corridor that lead to one of the ground floor's elevators, standing in front of them in the middle of the last ones out of his lackeys who hadn't been killed or immobilised and proceeding to hold up his own pistol, to show the source of the WR600's fresh wound. "I think you've all gone far enough now, don't you?" Elijah then aimed it at Hank, who was in the middle of our seven protagonists, and the smirk which normally made an appearance on the former's face had ceased to exist altogether. 


	40. Episode 14: What It Means to Be Alive (Finale) [Part 1/3]

"Come on, you're not seriously going to give us the whole speech about how these things you've done are all completely okay again, are you?" Eve leaned her head backwards slightly and sighed as the asked this, addressing Elijah. 

"No, you've already heard me and my colleagues' warnings enough times. You've seen what we're capable of, so I'd have thought you'd have at least a little more common sense in you." His gun remained pointed straight at Hank's chest. "And you've already been told the reasons for why I have no choice but to exterminate the defective androids."

"It doesn't have to be like this!" The blonde with the frizzy hair - resorting to using this sentence thanks to all the other, more elaborate options of what to say proving to be useless earlier during the confrontation at the club building - replied. 

"Are you deaf? It was only two seconds ago when I told you that I have no choice! For the ones who've gone against me, for the ones out of your group who've killed and broken the bones of my associates tonight, I might add, just simple consequences are nowhere _near_ good enough." He snapped back instantly after she'd finished speaking, his right index finger's grip tightening on the trigger; his demeanour was melting away from his previous one, which was one that reeked of smugness and a cold, calculating mindset, and transforming into one of callous intentions which he didn't bother to conceal anymore and which exhibited outright aggressiveness. Clearly this was where Conrad got his own similar personality from. 

"And taking their lives away and continuing to oppress the other androids _is_?!" Arthur, who was normally a relatively calm and collected man by nature, felt his own personality melt away a little bit into one whose purpose was to display anger. 

"If you're just gonna kill people, human or not, without any kind of guilt, you obviously don't even know what it means to be alive in the first place." Said Hank, with his voice's volume being low and his tone carrying a package of poison as his own trigger finger grew tighter, in addition. He knew all too well about how important life was and about how every moment of it was precious. 

"A genius who created an entire species turning out to be nothing more than a murderer and a dictator for those people." Andrea added with similar coldness in her voice to that of her companions, and the pupils of her eyes were directly in line with Kamski's. "I've just been thinking, what a waste of a perfectly good potential for greatness." 

"Typical close-minded annoyances, always fixating on the worst possible side of everything when you can't put in the effort to grasp the concept of something you don't understand!" Having finally lost his patience and his usually charming but sinister behaviour vanishing, Kamski yelled this in response. He then added, with his irises shrinking by a couple of degrees, "I have no idea how I can make this _any_ simpler anymore: you've seen too much, all of you have, including that other girl, and the chaos and destruction you've brought to my company ends right here and _**right now**_! _If I have to I'll terminate the seven of you all at once if it means CyberLife will continue to stand, if it means_ _ **people like you won't have the chance to destroy my six YEARS' worth of work!**_ "  
  


Fire - the name used to describe the thing which was currently creating the copious amount of smoke that littered the air on Level -1. It snaked up every single door it could get its unforgiving claws on, additionally reaching for the tiles of the walls and some corners of the ceiling in some kind of futile attempt to satisfy its ravenous appetite, with emphasis on the word ' _futile_ '; it still wanted more, being a substance whose wrath could only be silenced by being extinguished - although this wasn't that much of a viable option right now due to it being too large and covering so much of the corridors that a fire extinguisher would prove to be ineffective - and if it could, it would be much more than happy to clutch on to the five people who were making their way through the corridors at high speed.

"Are you sure that what you did back there will work?" Chloe asked North and Markus both at the same time.

"That debris was heavy enough to crush three androids all at once, and after it fell we didn't see any kind of movement, so yes." The RK200 answered her querie, fully remembering what had taken place roughly a minute beforehand: during their continued confrontation against Conrad after the former had inadvertently setting the nearby door on fire with his ability, he and North had used their powers simultaneously with the goal of creating a combined effect, and this appeared to be successful, because the force of fire and lightning bolts blended together was so destructive that it caused numerous tiles of the ceiling, directly above Conrad, to fall down from their place when they tried to aim this energy at the aforementioned RK900 - a small part of it had ended up coming into contact with the tiles, which was what managed to dislodge them. They were large and relatively heavy, so their descent towards the ground had ultimately crushed Conrad, whose last word was a profanity under his breath during the split second in which he realised that he was, basically, completely and utterly screwed. 

Jenna, meanwhile, who was still running with the other four and who Connor was once again pulling along by the hand so that she'd maintain the same speed as them and not get left behind, found herself involuntarily coughing and spluttering as a result of their current surroundings. She was the only one out of them who had lungs, so consequently she was the only one on the receiving end of the unpleasant sensation her chest was experiencing courtesy of the smoke; a few seconds ago she'd decided to cover up her mouth and nose with some of the front of her Hawaiian shirt, this fortunately proving to be mostly successful. However, for the remainder, some of the smoke had already entered through these two facial features, making her gag. 

"How much further?" She managed to get this out in between coughing, something which the RK800 had noticed and had experienced concern about but hadn't said anything so far; he was hoping they'd be out of this mess soon like he'd promised her a few minutes ago.

"Only a little further now, we should be at the nearest elevator in another few seconds." Replied North, turning her head back to look at her. Markus was at the front of the pack, with her right behind him, and then there was Chloe and close behind her was Connor and Jenna at the back. 

"This is the corridor that's right in front of it!" Added the former-mentioned one out of the two males after they turned yet another corner. 

Sure enough, this passageway was a particularly long one, specifically it was fifty feet from one side to the other, with what looked to be one of the building's elevator shafts taking up the last few feet at the other end, ready for the main part of its name to be called down from wherever it may currently be in the building; this was presumed to be the ground floor. 

The group of five had, until this point, been simply running, but now that the elevator shaft was in sight, they immediately picked up the pace and it turned into a wild sprint. It was now a mad dash to get there as soon as possible, to get to their nearest ticket out of all this havoc down here at Level -1; none of them dared to look back or to make any more changes in pace at all, because even the slightest alteration now could mean the difference between success and failure at the sole objective they had in mind. 

But alas, they should've known that what they were trying to achieve right now had so far been too easy. 

"CONNOR!" Chloe shouted in the space of a split second as, in this same amount of time, several pretty large tiles fell down from the ceiling, which would've crushed this male if he hadn't have predicted the tiles' descent on the spur of the moment and completely ceased running right in front of where they'd landed. Him and the human soon discovered, upon looking at it a couple of seconds later after the dust flying in the air had dissipated, that except for landing on them, there was no other worse place for the tiles to land: they'd ended up in between the pair and the other three, separating the two parts of the group from each other. 

"Can you move them? With your power?" Jenna turned to him and enquired this, becoming more and more tense and nervous with every second they spent down here, amongst the fire. 

Connor focused his eyes, narrowed as an effect of the effort he was putting in, on the partly broken and crumbling debris and stretched his left arm out in front of him, attempting to put his telekinesis to more use for the purpose that she girl had just mentioned - however, after several seconds of the tips of his fingers tensing up and resembling claws in the way they were positioned, along with one of the tiles on the top shifting ever so slightly and his LED being bright yellow, he felt like it was too much, like at any moment his body was going to be crushed by a force from within, and he lowered his arm again. 

"It's too heavy." He informed. She could see the external signs of the fact that it had been hurting him, which consisted of his LED flickering into red a couple of times, and his facial expression looked similar to the one humans showed when they were exhausted; clearly his ability was beginning to drain, which was understandable after all the times he'd been using it tonight for tasks that were larger in magnitude than what he was used to, such as flinging people into walls. 

"We'll get help and come back for both of you!" The RT600 yelled to them through the small gaps in the debris, which went to about halfway up from the floor and which neither North nor Markus dared to use their own powers to destroy, because their respective lightning and flames could end up making their current surroundings even more hazardous. They couldn't see it taking place, but the duo then heard the sounds of three pairs of feet making an exit from the scene on the hard, polished floor tiles, continuing towards the elevator shaft. 

"Someone _will_ come to help us, won't they?" Queried Jenna. 

"Of course they will; we've already come this far, so it'd be very unlike those three to not fetch assistance like they said they would." Connor nodded his head in reply, before he looked down at her right forearm, the one that he'd wrapped his tie around a few minutes beforehand, and doing a quick scan of it. "The bleeding from your wound has stopped; it looks like the pressure applied to it from the tie worked." 

"Yeah. Cheers for that, back there." She thanked him while still using one hand to hold up the area of her shirt that she was using to shield her mouth and nose from the never-ending attack of the smoke on this floor, being commanded forth by its fearsome points of origin. For a moment or two, she and the android looked around them at these points of origin, the flames which had caused Conrad's death a minute ago and, as a result, allowed them to make it to this point in one piece, and which was a force that contradicted itself in its own existence: it was capable of creating life but its other, main purpose was nonetheless to strip that life away from the creatures it came into contact with, this latter one being its primary concern at this moment in time. 

The pair were startled, however, when another sound that they heard was that of someone else's footsteps approaching from the other direction, behind them - they were at a steady pace, so obviously they weren't running. 

It took a few moments, but eventually they were able to make out the figure who owned the feet creating the sound when he got close enough, emerging a few meters away out of the smoke and the flames loitering on numerous areas of the walls and floor. And this person was one who both of them had expected to never show his face again after his fate a couple of minutes ago. 

"Are you trying to leave me so soon, Connor?" Said Conrad slyly. 

" _Stay back!_ " Jenna barked, letting go of the held-up part of her shirt in order to use both of them for grabbing hold of the gun she'd acquired, which she'd by now placed into one of the back pockets of her jeans. 

"You think I'll 'stay back' because I'm so desperate for you to put that feeble weapon down?" He retorted sarcastically. When the RK900 came into full view, the best way our protagonists could accurately describe his current appearance was that he looked like one of the living dead: roughly a sixth of his facial skin was burnt, causing those affected areas to be showing the white plastic underneath, a couple of areas seemed to have been burned so deeply that this same white plastic itself in those regions was charred and bleeding, his right elbow was caked in the Thirium that was pouring out from a small, fresh wound he appeared to have sustained a couple of inches above it, some of the bottom and sleeves of his pure white jacket had been stained a dirty charcoal grey colour, and the pair noticed that whenever he spoke, his voice seemed to sound a little bit metallic in a few places. 

"I thought you died a few minutes ago, in all that debris from the ceiling." She said. If the dread and intense, gnawing fear deep within her gut at the current situation was already sickening, Conrad's reappearance had caused this to be amplified tenfold.

"For some moments, I thought the same." The taller one out of the two males replied in his still partially glitching voice, slowly walking towards them and therefore making the tense apprehension within the duo steadily rise. "But eventually I managed to pull myself out of it all and find out which direction you'd ran away in. And if I'm being quite honest, 'little brother', I'm glad that you managed to survive this long, too, because it means the job of carrying out your execution is still all mine." 

"I'm glad I still have the opportunity to eliminate you myself, so that I can know for certain that you'll never get the chance to kill anyone else who wants to achieve the same goal as me and the others." The person he'd just addressed made a cold response.

"Oh yes, your goal of throwing away everything here that you've known in exchange for foolishness." Conrad's own tone was just as frosty. 

"The correct term is 'freedom'." Retorted Connor. 

"THE CORRECT TERM IS 'DISOBEDIENCE'!" The taller one bellowed back instantly after the male who'd previously spoken had finished his sentence, this successfully proving itself to be startling. "You've rejected every single thing that you've been given here; you've not only rejected Amanda's guidance but you've additionally rejected that of our own CREATOR! There's only one of us here who's genuinely grateful for the order our lives have been provided with, and there isn't a single sign that hasn't pointed to it not being you." His limbs were shaking by a small fraction from the last tiny remainder of his previously concealed rage emerging, leaving behind a freezing and dark shell which housed no more emotions that were hidden at all. The only emotion that his demeanor was carrying had an official name: bloodlust. 

"And it seems there's also only one of us who's capable of not being a sentinel to Kamski and Amanda's oppression." Said the male with the brown eyes. 

_**[Background score:]** _

This was apparently the spark which detonated the bomb nesting in Conrad's mind, as straight after the shorter of the RK-model androids had made this statement, the former charged towards them at an alarming speed, emitting a roar at the same time. 

Jenna's stomach-turning trepidation had just flared up as a result of what was now going on, and she made an attempt to defend herself and Connor by pulling the trigger of the gun she was still clutching while trying to aim it at his chest - on the spur of the moment, though, her aiming misfired and instead managed to land a bullet each in his right thigh and his right wrist, but these were both impacts that only caused damage to the edges, so it wasn't deep enough to immobilise those limbs. In retaliation, he used his slicing ability to cleanly cut the gun into halves just by directing his gaze at it for a quarter of a second, prompting the girl to gasp in surprise for the same amount of time as the weapon which had now been rendered useless fell to the ground in two pieces. 

He tried to tackle Connor to the ground, and he was partly successful, but the latter was ready for it; he quickly turned himself around so that instead of his own body being the one nearer to the floor, Conrad's was, so they'd effectively switched positions. Connor then pushed him onto the ground immediately afterwards, only for him to get back up again straight away, and he was about to put his antimatter creation to use when Jenna, wanting to protect her friend regardless of whether she was about to be killed by one of their adversary's powers, also charged towards Conrad and she managed to push him over towards the floor with her arms around his neck.   
He was flailing about, but she still held on tightly for a few seconds in her effort to restrict his movements, to which in return he concentrated his mind on utilising his slicing ability once again - Jenna let out a noise which was the result of crossbreeding with a gasp and a yelp when she suddenly sustained a large cut along the side of her left forearm to match with the deeper one on the underside of her right arm, making her impulsively jerk her hand back in reaction to it, allowing Conrad enough time to swiftly turn around and, briefly picking her up roughly by the neck, toss her onto the ground and out of his way, with her landing dangerously close to one of the bigger flames in this corridor. 

Connor decided to make use of his own ability by telekinetically lifting up a piece of debris nearby, which was in amongst many other pieces and which was smaller in size compared to the tiles blocking the path to the elevator and was therefore easier to move; he focused his consciousness on the task, and he raised his hand vertically as the tile fragment did the same, moving up off the floor and into the air next to his head. He then proceeded to let out his own roar and simultaneously hurl the fragment in the direction of the RK900's own head, the latter snarling and using his antimatter ability at a very low level to, via its explosion, shatter the fragment into a million minuscule pieces that flew off in all directions indiscriminately, a couple of them creating two more small cuts on Connor's face in the process. 

The RK800 tried again, but this time he did it with four tile pieces instead of just one, and the strain of this was more intense, so this particular roar he emitted at the same time was louder than its predecessor by a few notches and he had to raise both of his hands at his sides. When he thrust this hands outwards and non-physically made the four pieces soar towards his enemy, the latter mostly held his ground and attempted to create a force field around himself with his barrier creation ability, although just as it was about to fully work, half of it seemed to fizzle out, allowing three of the pieces to make impact with his abdomen, the left side of his face and his right shoulder - his reaction was something which our protagonist pair thought they'd never see him display: Conrad gasped in pain from the collisions and his yellow LED flickered red for a couple of moments. And then the rest of his barrier fizzled out entirely, as well. 

"Your barrier ability is compromised. In fact I'd say that it's on the brink of draining altogether." Observed Connor, whilst Jenna, who'd by this point gotten up from where she'd been thrown onto the floor and who was now at his side, looked up without moving her head and noticed that above them, on the ceiling which was twenty-eight feet high in this part of Level -1, some of the other tiles around the area of where the path-blocking debris had come from were hanging loosely there - most likely as a result of the fire reaching nearly all the way up the wall close to it - and what appeared to be a razor-sharp piece of metal, fairly large in size, was hanging down from the gap where the tiles had previously been fixed. The metal piece must've probably been a part of an extra layer above the ceiling. 

It looked sharp enough to kill a person stone dead. 

" _No_." Conrad realised the truth in what his slightly shorter counterpart had said a few seconds ago, as well as catching sight of the metal piece and additionally realising the previous sentence about it, and he made an attempt to turn away with a defiant look on his face and flee. However, the one with the darker eyes managed to force all the effort he had left within himself into telekinetically holding him in place, rendering his body motionless except for his head. 

And then one more sentence fell from Connor's lips, in a tone that was populated predominantly by calmness and indifference but along with a sense of satisfaction:

"Sorry big brother, but you've failed." 

This was said while he was also using the remainder of his telekinesis ability to dislodge the metal spike above, proving to be a successful task. Conrad, reaching the awareness of the fact that he was indeed in _very_ deep, dark trouble, tried to force his way back out of the motionless being enforced upon him with his eyes widened like that of a rabbit in the headlights and his jaw hanging open by a tiny amount of degrees. "No, no, I can't have failed! No! NO! _NO_ , _NO_ , **_NO_**! **_NO_**!" 

He instantaneously fell silent when the huge metal shard which his 'little brother' had fully shifted out of its place completed its descent to the floor, piercing straight through the body of the male with the grey eyes. 

It had gone all the way through his Thirium pump in the process, tearing into his back and then out of front of his torso as if he were made of tinfoil and making his dark blue blood splatter onto the floor in front of him in heavily copious amounts, continuously spilling out of his chest afterwards and covering the front of his black blouse; in extremely unpleasant shock, his mouth was still hanging open, which he coughed up even more Thirium out of three seconds later. 

Whilst her companion didn't show any reaction in the slightest, Jenna momentarily cringed at the repulsive sight of the last-mentioned part. 

"I... CyberLife's most... advanced... model... I will... dEstROy YoU..." His voice was becoming more and more distorted by the second as he also weakly reached for the front end of the metal spike with both hands, feeling its tip and glaring directly into Connor's eyes. "I'll... KiLL... yOu... mYSelf-..." 

Even though he'd effectively finished his sentence, it was nonetheless cut off, as his LED which had been entirely red until now faded out piece by piece, until there was absolutely no colour remaining in it and all external movements had completely ceased. 

Conrad, the most lethal enemy that Jenna and Connor had ever faced, was well and truly dead. 


	41. Episode 14: What It Means to Be Alive (Finale) [Part 2/3]

For a few moments, Connor and Jenna both stood there, next to each other, looking down at where the body of Conrad now kneeled on the floor with the vertically-angled huge metal spike jutting out of his chest and back, after its life force had just finished draining itself out into nothingness. It was only during this aforementioned lapse of time but they couldn't stop themselves from feeling an odd mixture of relief and a wave of surprise; they'd been through an intense battle in order to make it this far and succeed in defeating him, a battle which had pushed their endurance and resolve to their limits, but now that he was indeed defeated and their primary objective had been accomplished at long last, a part of them still couldn't fully believe he was gone and their most dangerous enemy had quite literally fallen to his knees. Although as a result of the previously stated main focus at this moment, they reached the conclusion that it was disbelief in a good way. 

Inside the Zen Garden, Amanda had been once again plucking some red roses from the garden's spotlessly shining white trellis when she found out about Conrad's death a few seconds ago, at which moment her hands had gone numb and her mouth had fallen open slightly from the abrupt shock; the way she'd discovered it was that at the exact same moment when the spike had torn through his body and through his Thirium pump in the process, she'd physically felt a rather sizeable burst of pain, as if _she_ were dying as well, and then the next thing she felt was a nearly sickening emptiness in the pit of her soul now that the RK900's had faded out from this known universe. The 3 roses she'd been holding in her hands had dropped to the floor when this burst had taken place. 

"One last question: what are we going to do now?" Jenna enquired to her companion, resurfacing to the realisation of their surroundings after their interval of gazing at the scene which now lay in front of them. Although it was almost at the end of her sentence when she found herself coughing again like she'd been doing a few minutes beforehand, feeling as if the fire was in possession of a gnarled hand that was slowly reaching down her throat. 

Connor, seeing this happen, walked a few inches closer to her and reached out his hands, and she didn't resist as he pulled up the front of her shirt like she'd done earlier so that it was now covering up her nose and mouth. "North, Chloe and Markus said they were going to get the others, so it looks like we're just going to have to wait until someone arrives." 

"I think I can help with that." A feminine voice immediately grabbed their attention from in front of where the corridor-blocking debris was, to which the pair turned their heads in that direction straight away to be greeted by the sight of a blonde AX400 in front of them, who was sporting a warm smile on her features. 

"Kara!" Said Connor in surprise. 

_6:11 PM, July 5th 2019._

"When's she going to come back, Ralph?" Meanwhile, Alice, her eyes marginally wide in concern, looked up at the WR600 she was addressing roughly about fifteen seconds later.

"Ralph doesn't know, but she's been gone for thirty seconds now, so if we give it another minute she should be back soon." The male with the huge scar on his left cheek replied with a reassuring grin - after all, what was there for him to not be smiling about right now? His arm was indeed still immobilised after the gunshot that had hit it earlier, but they'd emerged victorious after a long, tough evening. 

"This isn't over, you know. This is only just the beginning, and as long as you're all still alive, I _will_ keep coming back." The happy and overall lighthearted atmosphere temporarily grounded to a halt when Elijah, who was handcuffed and laid on the ground a few meters away, spoke up and said this. Right now, everyone was gathered together outside the Tower, on the right hand side of the grass covering all of the area around it except for the small portion where the road leading from the main security gate stretched towards the Tower's entrance, and the sun was still in the process of setting despite it currently almost being within reach of its destination past the horizon. All of the surviving androids who our protagonists had set free from the underground floors were scattered around the rest of the grassy area, engaging in various activities to celebrate their newfound freedom, with these being dancing, singing amongst their groups or simply embracing each other tightly - if you listened carefully, you'd be able to hear their jovial voices carrying across the land around them. "My empire is _anything_ but finished yet." 

"Yeah. 'Coming back' my ass." Hank remarked as he walked up closer to him with another coldly firm expression on his face. "The truth is it's over, Kamski, you just can't bear to admit it." The police Lieutenant stopped when he was only about a foot in front of him. "Maybe you should expand your company to prison cells, 'cause something tells me you're gonna see a _lot_ of one of 'em pretty soon." Without his adversary having any time to react or to mentally register it, the fifty-two year old quickly knelt down and whacked him in the side of the neck with his right hand; it was done with enough force to render him unconscious immediately. 

"So this is where it all ends?" Asked Andrea, knelt down on her knees next to her boyfriend. Her chocolate brown hair which played host to its fiery red lower half fluttered delicately in the equally gentle Summer breeze. 

"It looks like it is." Arthur nodded in reply. Just like his partner, he had a small, contented smile presented on his face while he then turned his head in the direction of the others, to their left. "I take it this means that you lot and all those other androids won't ever need to be kept in the dark or used as test subjects again? That now you can all live in peace?" 

"Exactly." Chloe, who'd joined the group, answered him. "Living in fear is a thing of the past now." Her own beam slowly formed on her mouth, because it was virtually as if smiling were now some kind of newly discovered contagion which kicked itself into full effect with no delay or incubation period. 

Another few soothingly quiet seconds went past them, disappearing back into the abyss of oblivion as quickly as they'd arrived, before there finally came the sound of hurried footsteps drawing closer and closer with every moment, coming from the direction of the Tower's main entrance. Within another handful of seconds the sources of the sound emerged out of the doors and onto the grass outside, revealing themselves to be three familiar figures all liked together via holding each other's hands. 

"You're back!" Exclaimed Alice in relief when she saw them and then ran over to Kara, who in return put her arms around the YK500's back when the latter wasted no time in hugging her. Until now the older of the two had been holding the right hand of the youngest human with her own left and the RK800 had been holding her right, this being for the purpose of the former being able to teleport them both along with her at the same time, past the debris blocking the corridor and around the flames to the elevator shaft, where she then teleported them up through the currently empty shaft due to it being quicker than calling the lift down and then began running again, through the ground floor's corridors until they reached where they were now. 

"We are, and all three of us are very much alive." The fellow female android she'd ran up to responded amiably. 

"Ralph is happy; this means that all of us are still together! His friends have survived, and he likes that a lot." Added Ralph in an amplified version of this same manner, his grin growing that little bit wider. 

As soon as she was far enough away from the others to not end up inadvertently hitting them when she did so, Jenna fell back onto the soft ground which was somewhere on the precipice between being cool and being pleasantly warm; her back, head and arms touched the grass first and then her legs, which hung in the air for a moment, soon followed, with her limbs being spread far apart like she was a starfish.   
She let out a relaxed sigh from her nose and briefly closed her eyes, fully knowing in her mind that there was no need for her to be nervous, tense or battle-ready, or any other words to this effect for that matter, anymore - the receding sunlight on the surfaces of her eyelids further contributed to the tranquil feeling she was on the receiving end of.

"Are you alright, Jenna?" She heard Connor's voice ask her this, coming from to her left based on where she could detect it coming from. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alright mate, I suppose I'm just a little bit exhausted." Answered the sixteen year old as she then opened her eyes again and sat up into a kneeling position, facing him.   
They were directly in front of each other, so therefore they were able to fully see the injuries they'd sustained and what they now looked like overall: the male still had the cut on the side of his face, the gunshot wound on the outer side of his left arm, the other small scrapes on his jacket and jeans and his body underneath, and, of course, the Thirium which had been slowly dripping out of all these. Concurrently, the person he'd just spoken to had the gash on her right forearm from Conrad's attempt at torturing her earlier, her body displaying its deep red blood around her own wounded areas, the cut on the side of her left arm and the bruising that covered some parts of the rest of these limbs. 

"We did it." Said Eve in a partially quiet volume, not completely able to believe it herself, while her frizzy ponytail of blonde hair bounced behind her head in the same breeze that was stirring up Andrea's own hair. "We actually did it - we've won." 

"This is truly a great day for our people." Markus nodded his head by a few degrees in agreement. "All of us here did it; every one of us brought this outcome into our reach via joint efforts, and now we get to live in a new era thanks to it." 

Kara knelt down so that she was at eye level with the youngest of the seven androids. "It's over, Alice. It's finally over." 

"No more pain or hiding?" Alice queried, still smiling. 

"That's right."

"And will we be together, Kara? Forever?"

The one with the pixie cut returned the smile, and her eyes appeared to gleam as another effect of her current mood at the same time as her head gave a nod. "Forever." With these words, the pair both hugged each other closely with the expressions on their faces being maintained throughout the entirety of the embrace's duration. 

North looked up at the RK200 stood next to her, and once again it seemed that happiness and smiling were both a contagious condition. "We're free." 

Jenna, feeling her weariness begin to gradually creep up onto her already aching legs along with onto the rest of her body, did the second thing that afternoon which had made her experience an intense surge of instinctive social awkwardness and suddenly hugged Connor. Just like the first socially awkward event earlier, this one being significantly more so than the one taking place at this current moment, the telekinetic android showed a look of mild surprise on his face. His LED was temporarily flickering and his lower jaw was open ever so slightly, but both of these soon melted away and the former returned to its normal, calm blue when he decided to hug her back, letting her keep her head on his chest and her own arms around his torso whilst, albeit tentatively, he put his head on her left shoulder. Admittedly, the evening's exhaustion was tightening its grip slightly on _him_ , as well. 

"You pair of idiots." Hank was unable to do anything to stop himself from also smiling, and even if he _was_ capable of doing anything it'd be an outright lie if he claimed that he would've gone ahead with it. He approached Connor and Jenna, who made no resistance at all as he, too, knelt down onto the grass to the female's right and put one arm each around the duo, joining in with their hug. 

_6:46 PM_

Françoise Vanderpen, upon hearing a knock at the front door, walked from the kitchen table to this location, having just been conversing with her husband about their current situation - their daughter was very late in returning home from meeting up with her friends, an activity which had never caused any kind of incident like this before, and she seemed to have given a grand total of no replies to their text messages enquiring about this matter. They were beginning to contemplate calling the police. 

When she opened the front door, however, a large majority of her worries were resolved as soon as she saw who it was, making her eyes widen by a small fraction. 

"Evening, Maman." Said Andrea, standing there on the front step with her hands in her jeans' front pockets. 

In addition, there were two people standing right behind her, hand in hand: Kara and Alice. 

Whilst this was going on, the same scenario was happening to Liliana Ferencz; she opened the door after hearing someone ring the doorbell from outside, receiving the sight of her own overdue-returning daughter. The two androids standing alongside Eve were North and Markus, the sight of whom prompting the human's mother to quirk her eyebrows at seeing her with this duo of total strangers. 

"We have some explaining to do." North addressed Eve's mother. 

And finally, another half hour later ish, there was Stefan Kaufmann. He was the one to answer his own house's front door when it was knocked upon, experiencing a massive tidal wave of different kinds of emotions when he saw that the one who'd knocked was Jenna, standing in front of Connor and Ralph. 

Roughly an hour ago, the group had agreed that while Chloe stayed behind at the Tower to help sort out the whole mess, part of which including cleaning up the corpses of their fallen comrades and the guards who'd been killed in the battle as well as waiting for the police to arrive, the three human girls would go home to tell their parents the truth about everything now that it was all over, because due to CyberLife no longer being in operation, there was also no longer any risk of people ending up getting killed if they knew. The way they accomplished this was Hank driving Eve and Arthur back to their homes, with Markus and North accompanying them, and then he came back to do the same for Connor, Ralph and Jenna before returning to the Tower to assist Chloe; Kara had gotten Alice and Andrea to the latter's home via the usage of her teleportation ability.

After the trinity had reached their respective houses, the android duos that were with them gave the girls' parents a general introduction and explanation, after which all three groups had sat down and begun their journey through the longer and more detailed version. Despite the fact that all of this was very surprising and it came as a fairly large shock to them, not once did any of the parents interrupt or say anything at all until the explanations had finished, and instead they showed that they truly were listening by nodding their heads during every part of it. 

"And this Conrad, the android you fought against, how did you finally manage to kill him like that? You mentioned that one of his superpowers was to create force fields around himself." Rosalina Kaufmann enquired to Connor after his, Jenna and Ralph's full blow-by-blow of the last month's events was complete. The lounge's carpet around the sofa they were sitting on was littered with numerous different tennis balls and assorted toys for Spud and Reuben, who were both crowding around the pair of newcomers with their tongues hanging out and their tails swishing from side to side as a method of requesting to be fussed over. 

"We don't know for definite, but we believe that it was because when the ceiling tiles fell on him, it damaged his internal systems and his powers as a result, making his barrier ability less effective and allowing it to be drained more easily afterwards. We have a theory, another thing we don't know for definite, that CyberLife's scientists deliberately made that power more easily drained than the other two because of how they put more value in offensive capabilities than in defensive ones." The male with the dark hair responded at the same time as fussing over Reuben, Ralph doing the same to the other doggo - it didn't take the latter's zoolingualism ability to know what the two canines were asking for. 

"All this time, me and my colleagues have been using CyberLife's hardware products for work, while the people behind those products have been causing so much death and unhappiness..." Stefan muttered to himself, thinking out loud with his fists clenched - he was an I.T man, and the company he worked for often made use of the electronics CyberLife created on the deceptive surface - but he soon returned to his calm, collected self whose fists were once again unclenched. "So does this mean that you pair and all those other androids are free, and that everything's alright now?" The Austrian asked his own question. 

"To sum it up, yes, that's right." Kara, meanwhile, replied whilst nodding to Andrea's father, who'd just asked the same thing. "None of us have any idea what the future holds, but at least it's better than the lives we would've had if we'd have stayed quiet and started the breakout last month with Markus." 

"We could've died in so many different ways since then, and we avoided all of them." Alice added, the happiness within herself so far proving itself to be unending. 

"What's going to happen to Kamski and his associates?" Queried Francoise. The Vanderpens' own lounge carpet around the sofa was relatively neat and tidy compared to the Kaufmanns', the former's only playing host to some candles and a vase of brightly coloured flowers off at the side, on the left next to the fireplace. 

"Hank's probably still waiting for them back at the Tower with Chloe, but he told us that he's hoping the police will arrive there soon and help him with taking care of tonight's aftermath, along with taking care of the rest, including arresting Kamski and the other CyberLife staff who've survived." North, in Eve's lounge, answered the same question which was asked by Jordán, the latter's younger brother. 

"What about you lot? Are the police going to tell the public about the existence of androids via the government or anything along those lines?" Said Eve's father. 

"We honestly don't know at all. But we do know that based on the evidence the police will be presented with, it's very unlikely that they'll see our people as enemies now the truth has come out." Said Markus, and at this moment, just like he and the rest of the group had been feeling for the last half hour, there was only one word that could appropriately summarise his mood at this point, as well as that of the other members of our protagonist group: satisfaction, although an even _more_ accurate variation is 'fulfilment'. 


	42. Episode 14: What It Means to Be Alive (Finale) [Part 3/3]

_7:02 PM, July 10th 2019_

The sun had very nearly vanished beyond the horizon, consequently making the sky switch into its darkest non-night setting a few minutes beforehand and cast this darkness across the entire country. Just like what the weather of the last few days had been like, the atmosphere was filled with a smooth temperature which teetered on the borderline halfway between the two territories known as warmth and coldness, the latter currently existing courtesy of the fact that nighttime was approaching and with it additionally rendering itself a small contribution to the dampness in the air that was originally caused by the previous night's gentle rainfall; the time of year at this point had formed its marginally warm temperature into a barrier against these factors relating to the coldness. 

At a countryside mansion - which was used by the locals as a wedding venue - a few miles out from both the city and Andrea, Eve and Jenna's village, roughly a dozen cars were parked in the spaces in front of it, although some more of them were instead only stationary for a small amount of time before making an exit again, this small stationary period allowing their passengers to leave the vehicle and then proceed to make their way into the mansion. It was a large building which still managed to be dwarfed by the even larger pine trees encircling the perimeter of the premises, and these same trees also appeared to form a community of themselves for the next couple of miles around the back and sides of the mansion - outside this building, the bright lights illuminating the windows on its ground floor from the inside could probably be seen for a mile, along with the music inside being loud enough to be faintly heard up to several meters away from the front doors. 

Arthur's Jaguar was one of the cars that pulled up in front of the mansion, parking itself into one of the available spaces after entering onto the premises through the main gate, which was as open as it could possibly go tonight. As soon as the ignition was switched off and its passengers had finished their brief last-minute check as to whether they were as presentable as possible, Andrea, Jenna, Eve and Arthur himself all opened the doors and climbed out of the Jag. 

Andrea's dress was a long, slim bright crimson one with a bejewelled collar and shoulder area: 

Meanwhile, Jenna's dress was royal blue with a band around the waist and frills at the top which resembled roses: 

And finally, the dress that Eve was wearing had flower patterns covering the entirety of the front of the torso part, with dozens of tiny little black jewels added onto these patterns and with the bottom half being significantly different to the top one, and all of the dress itself was a pale salmon pink colour:

Tonight was the night of the prom for Eve, Jenna and the rest of their year group from their now former high school. 

After the aforementioned pair had finished their final day of secondary school last month, their year group's prom had been arranged by the school to take place on this night and the event had begun about half an hour ago; the attending students were allowed to bring two guests each, so this was why Arthur and Andrea were allowed to turn up on this evening. Andrea had attended her own former year group's prom the previous year, with Arthur as her guest, and getting to come to it once again as a guest of one of this year's attendees filled her with as much exhilaration as the first one had done a year ago.

"Love, I think you've got some hairs on your dress. On the bottom area, there." The brunette's boyfriend, after shutting the driver's side door behind him and locking the car via one of the buttons on his key, suddenly noticed this and pointed his index finger at the part he was referring to. "Sorry I didn't see it until now, it's just that it was dark inside my car and I wasn't paying full attention to it when I picked you up." 

Upon looking down at the bottom of her dress, she saw that there were indeed what she quickly deduced to be a rough estimate of half a dozen black cat hairs attached to the front. "Oh yeah. Those must've gotten there about a minute before you arrived at my place a few minutes ago - Nightshade was brushing up against my legs." She said as she began to bend over a little bit and lift up the bottom slightly to sweep all of the hairs off of it. 

The creature she was talking about was a female midnight black coloured cat Arthur had gifted her with as a birthday present two years ago, whose eyes were very nearly the same vibrant, emerald green colour as her owner. One of Nightshade's most favourite activities was to nuzzle herself into this owner of hers, no matter wether it was into the side of her legs, her lap or against her arms, or any part of her limbs for that matter. 

It was only six seconds or so later when another vehicle, this one being the most familiar out of all the others, pulled up onto the premises after entering through the main gate, revealing itself to be none other than Hank's car, arriving to drop off the other prom guest who was to accompany our four tonight. 

"Thank you for driving me here, Lieutenant." Said Connor. 

"That's no problem. What do you think of the suit I got for ya?" The human asked as he brought the car to a stop for the next few seconds in one of the spaces. 

"It looks like it fits me well, like what you told me yesterday, and overall I feel pleased with it." He nodded his head fractionally while he gave this reply. 

"That's because of another thing I told you when we got it yesterday: it's something that you picked out 'cause it just feels like _you_." 

"You were right - it's something that's been making me feel like I really am unique to everyone else without it being because of the power I have." He willingly allowed his eyes to stray over into the direction of the passenger side wing mirror, giving his reflection the perfect opportunity to gaze straight back at him and giving himself the chance to get another look at how he looked with the bow tie, which was so immaculate that its top edges shone in the reflections of the headlights belonging to the vehicle currently behind Hank's own car. 

"That's one of the things that shows you what it means to be a person. What it means to have your own future to make without anyone telling ya how to make it." Said Hank, turning his head to look at the male with the brown eyes. 

"One of the things that tells a person they're alive?" The one he was looking at turned his head to do the same. 

"Exactly." The fifty-two year old, with a small smile, nodded his head. "Now you get out there and you have a great night, understand?

"Understood, Hank." 

"I'll come back later and pick you up at 10:30 or somewhere round there. See you, Connor." He bade his passenger a farewell as the latter used his left arm to open the door. 

"I'll see you later, Hank." Connor gave a nod and his own small smile before closing the door again once he was outside, and three seconds later the human reversed his car back out of the space, on his way out of the main gate. 

"Evening." Arthur, alongside the girls, greeted him as he began making his way over to where they were standing. 

"Hello everyone." 

"Wowee." Eve commented when she saw the suit that he was wearing. While Arthur's was a white jacket with a grey waistcoat and a long black tie on top of a white button-up blouse, with matching white trousers, Connor's apparel was reversed in terms of colour: like in the picture placed at the top of this chapter, his jacket was dark blue-black, his white blouse was the same but his bow tie was pure white, and the waistcoat underneath the jacket was a darker version of the jacket. In addition, the handkerchief neatly poking out of the left breast pocket was the same colour as the bow tie, with Arthur's was also the same. 

"You genuinely do look fantastic." Added Jenna, an impressed smile coming to rest upon her features. 

"Like a badass?" Connor, remembering the 18th of June, queried. 

" ** _Yes_**." She heavily emphasised this word in reply, nodding her head vigorously.

"Seriously, you look like James Bond." Andrea appended as she realised how much his current getup, as well as his hair, made him look like the Sean Connery version. 

Momentarily confused, he ran a quick search on the definition of the name she'd just mentioned, soon finding out that as she said, it was true that the clothes he was wearing right now caused him to resemble this fictional character. "I suppose it does make me look like him." He said, before then suddenly remembering something rather important. "Did you bring your mother's concealer like you said you would?" He cast a quick glance behind him at the few other attendees beginning to walk towards the mansion's front doors. 

"I did, yeah." It took about half a minute, but after taking it out of the handbag she was carrying - all 3 of the girls had a handbag each with them tonight - the group of five ducked down slightly once they'd reached an area of the car park that was off to the side, mostly hidden within the shadows. Connor turned his head towards this region shadows at the side in order for no one from outside the group to see his LED, which Andrea proceeded to gradually cover up with the concealer she'd borrowed from Françoise's bedside table; this was what the five had agreed to a couple of days beforehand, as a part of their plan to pass him off as a completely normal human like they'd done in the city on Eve's birthday. 

"That looks about done." Said Eve when she and the other four could see that his right temple's LED was now fully covered up, and as he'd told them two days ago, the concealer was going to have no effect on it and not cause it to become damaged in any way. 

"Now you can look just like a human but without that black beanie from last month." Andrea also said, pleased with her handiwork, while she put the concealer back into her handbag and they then started walking towards the mansion's door. 

"Hi miss." The youngest greeted the woman who was standing inside the open doorway - the school's drama teacher and the head of her and Eve's year group, Miss Tanner. She was that type of teacher who had a fairly casual attitude to life and was more than willing to provide assistance to a student in need, but who was also perfectly capable of getting snappy and fearsome to anyone who she found to be causing any trouble; it was what you'd call a place in between, where she was an approachable person but without lacking control over her classes and with a teaspoon of sass signed, sealed and delivered to the people who incurred her disapproval. 

"Evening, Jenna. How are you all?" She asked with an amiable smile on her face. As always, her blonde hair, which was a slightly darker shade compared to Eve's, was pulled up into a tight, low bun behind her head which had several spikes and strands of the rest of her hair poking out of the bottom of this bun like a tail. Her usual getup was a long black cardigan, a casual white dress underneath and black tights, but tonight it was instead a black turtleneck sweater, a pale grey blazer on top and smart black trousers because of the prom being a semi-formal occasion, albeit the black half heeled boots she normally wore were still included in this latter outfit. 

"We're good thanks." The middle born one out of the girls answered her. "What about you?" 

"I'm alright, thanks for asking. Our good old friend Luke turned up a few minutes ago so I'm keeping half an eye on him and his mates, but so far he surprisingly seems to be behaving himself." The teacher, after giving this response, turned her dark brown eyes in the android's direction after realising his presence, her previous smile returning. "Oh hi, I don't think we've met each other before." 

"My name is Connor." He gave his introduction, courteous as per usual. "I'm Arthur's cousin." 

"He moved to this area about a week ago from America; I have some family there." The latter-mentioned human elaborated. This was all another part of the plan for getting Connor into the prom, where they'd pretend that he was a relative of Arthur - the part about him being an American was to explain his accent - and then hopefully Bob's your uncle. 

After the two men said these sentences, they and the trio internally hoped and prayed that this, along with the concealer hiding his LED, would be enough to convince her.

"Well, it's good to meet you, Connor." The plan's success was confirmed as she welcomely held her hand out for him to shake.

"Thank you, Miss Tanner. The same for you too." He reached out one of his own hands into hers. 

After that, they all made their way together through the front doors and emerging into the bright ceiling lights and the song which had been playing for the last few minutes, and in doing so, some more details about how the girls currently looked were revealed. These were that Eve wore was a black choker necklace with a white bejewelled heart dangling from the middle at the front, Andrea's was a silver necklace with several little shining red roses hanging along it, and Jenna, whose blue dyed hair streak on the right hand side at the front had made a reappearance, also had a silver necklace, but its accessory was a pentagram in the same colour with a small turquoise jewel in the middle of it. 

"There's so many colours here." Said Connor in awe as he not only saw the full potential of the trio's dresses gleaming in the light, but additionally caught sight of all the countless other tones and hues of the other dresses and suit jackets the other attendees in this spacious hall everyone was in. There were big white ribbons laced around the ceiling, filtering the lights through it and adding to the already spectacular scene. 

"It's basically like a fairytale come to life." Eve, finding herself amazed at how spellbinding the sight on the whole was to her as well, told him. 

"It certainly seems like this year's prom committee pulled out all the stops again." Andrea furthermore opined. 

They spent the next five minutes or so standing in a corner of the room where there were no other people, so that Connor could tell the other four about the recent developments he'd learned of regarding his creators: according to Hank, CyberLife had been disbanded and the Tower had been shut down by the police and the government following the caper from five days ago, and Kamski, along with his surviving accomplices, had been promptly arrested. The Tower's android-producing technology had been seized, so that more could be made from now on but these new ones would lack superhuman abilities, and would be treated much better. The other androids who were still alive had been provided with secret routes to the mostly-finished estates in the nearby areas, where they could take shelter for a while until the government had gotten their bearings and sorted out more things involving the matter. The RK800, Markus, Kara, Alice, Ralph and North, meanwhile, had continued to reside at the girls' AV club building for the time being, although they'd been starting to consider alternative plans, because it was only another two months ish until the new school year would begin, and therefore when this time comes the trio would need to give up the club building due to no longer being students at the school. One of these alternative plans were Markus and North, using the money the government was going to provide them and the other androids with to help them start their new lives, to move into their own rented flat which was in the same block as Arthur's. And at the moment it was nothing more than a thought that was rolling around, but Hank had suggested the idea of Connor living with him from at some point in the next few months. 

As for the general public, they were going to be kept in the dark about the whole business. However, the government was weighing up the option of, at some currently unknown point, revealing the existence of androids but without disclosing the fact that the ones who survived through CyberLife's reign have superpowers, thanks to the evidence they'd gained suggesting that Conrad was the only one who ultimately turned out to be fully hostile. 

The world was slowly changing, and the group's future was still uncertain but one of the possibilities for it was the approaching dawn of a brand new era. 

Ten minutes later, songs were continuing to play and our five were all standing together in front of the long table lining the right hand side of the room, with a smooth, glimmering white cloth covering its entirety and with a copy of this being on the opposite side. None of the students attending had reached the age of eighteen yet, so none of them had alcohol content, but across these two tables at the sides were assorted mocktails and other sparkling drinks in skinny goblets, whose edges were yet another thing that twinkled underneath the lights on the ceiling. 

Connor, deciding to speak out loud what he'd been having the desire to express for the last few minutes, tentatively leaned ever so slightly towards Jenna, who was stood to his right with a glass of elderflower water in her left hand, and he suddenly said,

"You're really pretty." 

This happened right at the same moment when she took another sip from the glass, and instantly after the words had left his lips her eyes went wide and, in addition, she began to briefly choke on the elderflower water in her mouth, quickly swallowing it before she coughed and spluttered for several seconds.

"Are you okay, Jen?" Eve, with the others also looking at her in concern, asked. 

"Yeah... yep, I think I'm alright now." She answered, making the android a little bit concerned as her eyes were fractionally teary from the exertion. "What... where did that come from, mate?" 

"I just wanted to tell you about that; it's something I've been wanting to say for some time now. I wanted to tell you that you're pretty, especially tonight, because it's the truth." 

Jenna looked back at him in surprise, touched by his statement and, consequently, feeling a weird, warm tingle spreading throughout the pit of her stomach like ink on a blank canvas. It was a foregone conclusion that this tingle improved her already positive mindset, based on how pleasant it was to her. 

"Cheers. To be honest, I think you look..." She tried to come up with a word that could describe it as accurately as possible but without embarrassing herself, before finally settling on, "...Dashing." 

The telekinetic male, feeling just as touched as she'd been a moment ago, allowed his own eyes to widen by a couple of degrees and he then flashed one of his usual small but sincere smiles. "Thank you." 

Before the others could exchange any kind of looks, this song began to play, transforming the tone altogether from an energising one to an atmosphere of soul-soothing tranquility, with the ceiling lights additionally becoming marginally more dim and changing into a soft white colour, like the moonlight. 

"This is for all of the lovers here tonight." Miss Tanner, standing at the back of the hall with a microphone in her hand, announced. 

"Sounds like that's our cue, then." Said Arthur, turning towards the emerald eyed seventeen year old in the red dress. 

"It is." Andrea, nodding in agreement, beamed back at him, and they then took each other by the hand and led each other at the same pace out into the middle of the room, where every other couple out of the attendees was beginning to gather, as well. 

Just like they'd done during last year's slow dance, the pair moved into their positions: the female carefully put her hands onto his shoulders, and in return he lightly placed his own hands on either side of her waist, prompting her to flinch for half a second, although this latter event passed as quickly as it had arrived, and in moments the pair were dancing together to this song. 

It was moments like this, when they were alone together such as a week and a half ago, when it was their turn for seven minutes in heaven at the club building, that amplified the already active fluttery feeling in their guts tenfold, making their faces gain a tiny bit of a red tint as well as because of the rising warmth in this hall; it was a feeling of tenderness which they'd both known for the last couple of years, and yet it still managed to find ways of making every single one of its recurrences exactly as strong as it had been the very first time it awoke from its dormant state, if not more so on a couple of occasions, this current moment being one of them. 

Andrea was grinning - she simply couldn't help it at all, and as a result she found herself completely enveloped by her current happiness caused by being this close to her boyfriend. She very much doubted that there was such thing as the words in the English language, or any language for that matter, which could describe it, because it was much more like an experience in itself that wasn't bound by any of the known universe's forces such as time, depth, distance or weight. It was just there, in her mind, as if its existence in any other form would cause it to unravel like a ball of wool in a millionth of a second. The same effect was beginning its process of engulfing Arthur, too, who found himself beaming back at her due to it being one of those moments in time that felt like it was being simultaneously slowed down and sped up, turning it into one of those moments that a person would hold on tightly to in their memories for the rest of their life. 

"Look at them." Said Eve, meanwhile, still off at the side with the other two as they all watched the duo. "It's things like this that make me think they're _seriously_ a cute couple." 

"Yeah." Jenna, sighing at how calm everything felt right now, replied. "And North and Markus are cute together, as well."

"The way they look out for each other is one of the best qualities I've ever seen in a person." Opined Connor. "Not just them but Arthur and Andrea, too. Actually, it's a quality that we've _all_ shown in the last month." 

"And now it's paid off." Added the blonde, to which the male nodded slightly in response. 

The three of them spent their next few seconds still watching the pair, a silence resurfacing among them again like it had done prior to the mini conversation they'd just had, before the youngest out of the entire group of five spoke again.

"Connor?" 

"Yes?" The one who was being addressed turned towards Jenna. 

"I... well, I was just thinking, so that we can pass the time, do you want to... dance? With me?" She managed to get these sentences out, albeit with some hesitation. 

"Like they're doing?" He momentarily looked to his left, at the other people including their 2 friends in the middle of the room, to show what he meant. 

"Basically, yeah." The sixteen year old nodded and shrugged. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to, it's just an offer, so I've honestly got no problem with it if you say no." 

His eyes appeared to twinkle as he answered her with, "I'd like that." 

"As in, you'd like to dance? You're accepting the offer?" 

He gave her a smile, a perfect match for his softly gleaming brown eyes. "Yes." 

"Oh... alright. Let's go then, I suppose." She was beaming herself, and with these words, she took the lead towards the centre of the hall with him following alongside her, both of them feeling their own sensations of prickling inside their limbs whilst the girl with the frizzy hair remained at the side, not fully believing what she was seeing, although this wasn't in any kind of cruel way. 

Having been told about it before he arrived here tonight, the android knew the basics of what to do, and thus he slowly placed his hands onto Jenna's waist, being careful so as to not make her get the impression that he was being forceful at all, while she let her own come to rest on top of his shoulders. It couldn't be seen by anyone, but underneath the concealer, his LED had turned yellow from how hesitant this was making him feel, with her feeling the exact same thing. 

Soon, though, they managed to shove their tentativeness aside and move their feet to this slow dance, gaining a glimpse of each other's contrasting eye colours - hers, which were a hybrid between blue and grey but predominantly the former, were piercing thanks to this colour, as if they were tiny, circular-shaped shards of ice that completely juxtaposed the personality underneath, and his own irises resembled chocolate so strongly that she was starting to become surprised that they hadn't melted yet, this warm tone reflecting the majority of his personality while also differing from the ruthlessness that he showed to the people who were his enemies. 

He was as unprepared when the thought came to him as she was when he acted on it, but, reaching the conclusion that nothing else in the world was as important as this right now, Connor had just felt an impulse come to him, so he acted on this aforementioned impulse and gently kissed her on the forehead. 

She gasped quietly to herself, abruptly feeling as exhilarated and electrified as she'd done 5 days ago when she put her lips directly into contact with his, but with it being to a marginally smaller degree this time. When he carried out this action, it was as if his entire body was bathed in sunlight thanks to the wave of warmth gradually coursing through every single atom within himself, and it was now somehow as if the sight of Jenna's face were an anchor connecting him to this same sensation and if he disconnected himself from this anchor by diverting his gaze, he'd be hopelessly lost in an abyss. 

Her face had turned red courtesy of what had just happened, making her even more flushed, but this wasn't at the top of her priorities list, because she was being provided with her own unexpected experience; this was a little voice in the back of her mind who was telling her that as long as she was close to him like this, everything was alright in the world. 

The attachment to him that was showing up inside her mind out of the blue, some kind of strong desire to remain like this with him, made her legs tremble for a couple of moments and, in addition, made her feel terrified and heavily excited both at the exact same time. He was getting sucked in by this same attachment, hearing the same voice inside the back of his head who was telling him the same thing about being this close to her, and he felt himself become struck by another instinct that he couldn't explain, urging him to take one of his hands off of her waist and use it to hold one of her own. 

He went ahead with this, choosing to use his right hand, and she didn't put up any kind of resistance when he placed it onto her left one, which was still on his shoulder - she then moved this hand of hers into the middle of the narrow space between them, during which she was suddenly hit with another pulse wave of tingling warmth. 

As they continued to move to the slow dance, something abruptly began to happen which he couldn't help: the synthetic skin on Connor's right hand, as a result of the strong emotions he was currently experiencing, was gradually deactivating itself without doing the same for the skin on the rest of his body. Thinking quickly, Jenna noticed this taking place and she hurriedly moved her interlinked hand so that they were now on top of his abdomen, his own hand being pressed up against his torso in a manner that meant it was _much_ more difficult for other people to see it now. 

And so the remainder of the song continued like this, with her left hand and his right still holding each other tightly while pressed against his abdomen. Now that the skin on his hand had retracted itself, it was still pleasurable to hold but now, the white plastic making it up underneath felt smooth and equally cool to the touch. Jenna closed her eyes in bliss, feeling her breath catching ever so slightly in the depths of her throat. 

"I swear it honestly was that same bloke!" The voice of a certain male sixteen year old carried itself across a small part of the car park outside the mansion at about 10:27 PM, which was roughly three hours and ten minutes later. The prom had ended. "That man Jen-Jen was with was the same man who made me wet my pants back in June!" 

"Why are you so worried about that, anyway? Are you scared he's going to use his 'mystical powers' on you again?" Joel Sheehan, by the side of the one who'd previously spoken as per usual, remarked with a mocking laugh lacing his second sentence. He and Millie Akers had both not believed Luke on the evening of the 18th last month, when the latter had claimed that Connor was responsible for him being forced to wet himself when he'd tried to hit Jenna. The human had no idea how, but during the moment in which it happened he realised that it had to be something to do with this stranger. 

"'Help, help, he's going to make me mess my pants, mummy!'" Millie joined in with the laughter; normally, Luke had a smug, toothy grin plastered across his face, but at this moment in time, the expression resting on his features was instead a snarl. "That's going all over Insta..." 

"Both of you can shut up!" The tallest out of the trio snapped back. "She won't know when it's coming but it's coming - one day, she _**will**_ be my babe." 

"Yeah, when that other man you saw her with tonight doesn't apparently have the power to make people pee all over the floor." Snickered Joel, to which he was once again yelled at to shut up before the three of them all walked off together. 

**_ [Background score:] _ **

Meanwhile, back at the mansion's front doors, five other pairs of feet had by now made their way onto the step that served as the threshold between the outside and the building's interior, momentarily gazing out at the full darkness of the sky. 

"The stars are out, look." Arthur pointed with his right index finger at the tiny little pinpricks dotting the elegant blend of blue and black, mostly the latter, above their heads. 

"Oh yeah! They've obviously been shifting into their places while we were in there." Replied Eve, experiencing a sense of awe at the night's beauty when she looked upwards herself. 

"It's gorgeous." Andrea added her own comment, still being on the receiving end of her happiness' full potential from her and Arthur's closeness taking place throughout the last few hours. 

"I know something else that's gorgeous." The twenty-four year old accountant turned his head towards the girl with the darkest hair out of the female trio, an essence of blush creeping up onto his cheeks while she chuckled softly. 

"Thank you, Artie." Without being nervous in the slightest about other people seeing it, she then craned her head upwards fractionally and pecked him on the right cheek. "You're very handsome, too." She didn't need to stand on her tiptoes at all, because all three of the girls were wearing high heels, hers being silver ones while Eve's were white and Jenna's were black. 

"Thanks, love..." His mouth slowly curled upwards. 

"Hank should be here soon." After a few more seconds, Connor informed the others of this. "I think I'll wait for him here for another few minutes until he arrives." 

"Alright then. Me and these three are probably going to make a move in a minute as well, so I'll see you later." The only other male out of the five answered him amicably. 

"Bye, Connor." His girlfriend added in farewell as, with that, they began to walk in the direction of his Jag. 

"I'll catch up with you in a minute or so, just wait for me." Jenna called out to her friends, remaining in place. 

"Okay, we will!" The middle born one out of the girls responded, internally giving her a knowing look based on the fact that she witnessed how the pair were interacting during the slow dance earlier. 

Once they'd walked off about a quarter of the way towards the car, leaving the two of them alone, this duo stepped out of the way of the doors so that the other attendees inside could get out and afterwards, they turned to look at each other's faces. 

"We'll be alright, won't we?" The bespectacled human enquired, her voice currently being no higher than at a gentle and mostly low volume. "From now on, I mean. Now that you don't need to do any more hiding and no one'll be able to come between us or the others?" 

"We will." The RK800 nodded his head in confirmation. "No one except for themselves ever knew what CyberLife's true main objective was, the reason behind why they created me and the other androids and gave us superhuman powers in the first place, but at least now they'll never get the chance to hurt us or complete that plan."   
  


Piece by piece, whilst at the same time she brushed some stray blue hairs away from the right side of her face, Jen's lips morphed into a beam that she soon discovered she couldn't control. "And we can be together." 

Connor, still holding her gaze without breaking it even by a tiny fraction, gave his own mouth full permission to convert itself into a smile of happiness at the suggestion she'd just made. "We can, Jenna." 

Off in the distance, a robin, having just finished calling out to its compatriots, took off from the thin branch that it had been sitting on until now and, while still emitting its harmonious tweeting sounds, flew away towards the horizon. 


End file.
